Radiolab - Straight Outta Chevy Chase

Episode Date: April 1, 2014

From boom bap to EDM, we look at the line between hip-hop and not, and meet a defender of the genre that makes you question... who's in and who's out.

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. Shorts. From W-N-Y-S-C. C.

Yes. And NPR. Hey, I'm Chad Aboumrod. I'm Robert Kulwitch. This is Radio Lab. The podcast. Okay, so Robert, here's a question that I've been puzzling over for a long time. All right, okay.

What is the fruitiest fruit that you know? My fridious fruit is a plum Well, no, I mean that's yours I don't want to take that away from you No, you shouldn't But when you ask most people that question They say apple or orange No, I mean it's true

Scientists have figured out that when you make a category In your mind, you're not doing it based on like a set list Of traits You're like, what you do is you call to mind The prototypical example Of that category And then you measure this new thing against it And for fruits, prototype is the

Gala apple, if you ask me, the red, shiny, waxy apple. You say there's somebody who's decided that an apple is the fruity fruit? They've done experiments. Oh, they've done experiments. They've done experiments. I bet you bananas outpole apples for consumption. Maybe. But that's not what makes a fruitiest fruit of fruity fruit.

It's more about, like, how well it represents the category. Okay. That's what it's about. Why are we talking about this, though? Well, because I've been wanting to explore this in story form. Forever. Forever. But you never have a story.

So it's like a, you never find a story. But I got one. now. It's not about fruit though. What is about? It's about this. That's what are you talking about? Let me explain. Hey.

So we met this guy, Andrew Morantz. I work at The New Yorker as an editor and I write stuff occasionally. Wandered in here one day, by mistake, I think. Super interesting guy, great reporter. And he ended up talking with us about this story he was reporting for the New Yorker about hip-hop. There are all kinds of rappers who are trying to sing. And how hip-hop might be changing. Because as we all know, this was a genre of music that began

in really specific time and place. Bronx, 70s, black and Latino kids. But it's since expanded so much that these inevitable questions pop up. You know, to really simplify it, the more white people come to the party, the more you kind of start going, okay, at what point is it,

it's clearly, it can clearly, it's clearly okay if everyone the room is black. And it's okay if everyone in the room is black except for one guy. You know, if Rick Rubin's at the party, but it's still, you know, black people at the tunnel in 1989 or whatever, it's still okay. But at what point, okay, if it's 50% white, if it's 75% white, if all the people who own the record labels are white, if a majority of the popular rappers are white, like at what point, and that's just the racial thing. Then there's also that sonically the way it sounds. There's the way the production is kind of merged with other forms of music.

So then all of a sudden you're at a point where you get the sense that there's somehow inherently, that there's something being replaced or taken over, you start to have this dilemma. Which is, you know, who owns the music now? And the dilemma is obviously heightened by the fact that everyone knew this was coming. Like, there's never been a form of American popular music as far as I know that wasn't invented by black people and co-opted by white people. And Andrew in his piece and in this story focuses on a guy. guy who sits right at the heart of that dilemma. One of the most influential DJs in hip hop today. Peter Rosenberg is his name?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me how you came to him. I mean, the first thing was... High 97, the most important hip-hop radio station in the world. Listening to Hot 97. Because I like rap and I want to know what is popular. And I was listening and I heard this guy who they kept calling Rosenberg. Rosenberg

And I was like, is that Rosenberg? Is that like Whoopi Goldberg, Rosenberg? Like, what does that mean? And then I looked him up, and I was like, no, it's just a guy named Peter Rosenberg. One, two, one, two, one, two. I mean, listen, doing NPR is already pretty soft, you know what I'm saying? He actually works just down the block from us. Is this going to hurt your cred in something?

I know, possibly. So he's a guy born in 1979. He grew up in... I grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Is that Chevy was a CH? Yes, it is. Peter says when he was about nine, his brother. My brother's name is Nick Rosenberg.

His brother started staying up late and making tapes. DJ Red Alert, Marley Mall. He would start taping those guys on the radio. At that point, 1987, 98, here in New York, they were the only two people playing hip-hop, and it was late at night. And at the time, I didn't consider myself a music person. I was only eight, but I really was like,

oh, music's okay, but I'm just obsessed with sports. And then at some point, I was like, oh, no, no, no. I love this. It was punk. It was rebellious. It was interesting. It was just cool. You know, now, to be honest, it's almost cliched when people say that, like, who would ever guess you'd be into hip hop? I'm like, I don't know. I would, because I know a million white kids who were into hip hop. At that time, though, it was not common. It was very much something that was a badge of honor for both of us

that we really, really loved it. And I was extra cool because I was. was super young. I remember one day, here's a great thing, I traded Javan my poison tape. I had Poison's album on tape. Every Rose Has Thorn album. I traded that poison tape for his Bismarkey tape. I was like, this is the best trade ever. It was business going off. Like, it's a classic album. And then at some point, my dad went out. He was coming home from work one day, and he said he stopped it. Nobody beats the whiz.

He asked the guy behind the counter what, like, the good rap albums were. And the kid actually gave him a pretty good recommendation, and he bought me a tape called Girls I Got Unlocked by Super Lover See and Casanova Rudd. What a father you have. I know. I know. So my knowledge base was always very high, very early. I had some friends in elementary school, and we would talk about rap a little bit,

but quickly I exceeded them. And then I got to high school, and I really took seriously being the rap guy. When I heard the passion and a public enemy, like, that resonated with me. Like, the NWA scared me. But made me interested. I just thought this is cr- I was like, yo, these guys are killing people. Like, this is really happening.

Was it really happening or were you going to the movies in song form? I was going to the movies, but to me, I didn't know the line. Okay, so Peter goes off to college, mid-90s. Did college radio. Hip-hop show. And then, as he gets out, decides he wants to do this for real. He secretly, you know, wanted to be a hip-hop DJ, but people were not taking him seriously. You know, white kid from the suburbs didn't compute.

He couldn't get on, what was then called urban radio. So I ended up doing a year on the Howard Stern station. He was doing like talk radio, you know, HFS, which I was part-time. Whatever kind of radio.

So he kept calling Hot 97 and the program director then was a white guy from Utah. You know, I gave him my spiel. I was like, I'm super passionate about hip-hop. I'm super honest. I don't think there's ever been

someone who looks like me and is from my background who has his honest and loud of voices me. I really think I'll be something different. And he basically says, I don't doubt you. But no, what are you talking about? I mean, they had token white people on various shows,

but it was either you're super white, like Lisa G. She was on the morning show for a little while. I remember that. She was super white. And that was kind of the joke. Or you were Bobby Condor's, who does the Sunday night reggae show, who you would never know he's white.

Because he just talks like he's Jamaican, and he only plays Jamaican music, he only hangs out with Jamaican people. So you had to have a lot of people. to be one of those two things. Where you denied your whiteness or you just were like, I'm going to... I'm going to be the butt of the joke. White bosses have often been like, you're really talented, but I don't know.

Would people really like you? Like, we don't... They talk to me the way we're talking right now and think if I'm able to relate to you this way, why would our audience relate to you? If I say yes, then why would my audience say yes with me? Because they assume their audience is so different than them. Which might have been true for a while. And then...

2007. Ebro Darden took over. Ebro Darden in the building. What's up, man? How you doing, sir? I'm doing great, man. I was just... This is him on air, Ebro.

A half-black, half-Jewish guy from Oakland, and he got it. Did hip-hop had changed? It's no longer so small and simple and provincial that we can go on pretending this is only a black and Latino thing. So when Peter came to the station and gave him the pitch... Hey, I'm P-M-D... Which was my old name back then? Because I'm P-P for Peter and MD for Maryland.

You can call me PMD. And E-Bro was like, no. You're Rosenberg. Ebro gave me my parents' name, more or less. He was like, the hook is that that's your name. Hot 97, Peter Rosenberg, Summer Jam, 2007. There's a video on YouTube of, it's called, I think, Peter Rosenberg does Summer Jam 2007. And it was my first day on the job.

Summer Jam is the biggest event of the year at Hot 97. It's this big show at Giant Stadium. All the top acts. I showed up there, and so my first day was just walking in a giant stadium, parking my car, by myself, getting a backstage pass, and being given a mic flag that says Hot 97, the place I've always wanted to work, and being told, go up to

all the famous artists who are here and just get interviewed. And if you go back and watch that video and see how much of an ass I make of myself, I say, to Ti, I think I go, is this your first summer jam? First, Ti, have you done a summer jam before? And he looks at whoever he's with and they both start laughing.

I'm asking. Have you done many summer jams? Today is your first day on the job. My first day on the job? I can tell. And I cannot believe in retrospect, I survived this day. The Seifers Sounds and Rosenberg show with K-Farckes on Hot 97. Not only survived, he became the host of two shows on Hot 97, a late-night underground show and also the big weekday morning show. And Rosenberg's brand is all about realness.

The Realness. His segment in the morning is called The Realness. His late night show, Sunday night to Monday morning. Real Late with Peter Rosenberg. It's called Real Late with Peter Rosenberg. It's all real, real, real. It's going to be real. Because that's the central question.

Can I be a real hip-hop guy, even though I'm Peter Rosenberg from suburban Maryland? I think you're raising an interesting point. Most outsiders rarely become insiders. But Peter says the key to understanding him is that he's kind of both. Like, on the one hand, he is this suburban white kid from Maryland. He doesn't pretend to be anything but. But on the other hand? I mean, a big part of Rosenberg's job is to go to shows and blogs and get tapes from people and find the new thing.

So he has a stable of like 20 or 30 underground artists who are making tapes and, you know, trying to pass around beats. And what's more insidery than that? Plus, he is like a purist. I've always liked. There's a certain pure form of hip-hop In the kind of rap nerd community They talk about certain things That are like lyrics

And listening for the metaphors And the intricacies of the music They talk about boom-bap beats Big sounding drumwise Boom-Bat like a It's a smear Kicks a high hat It's just a feeling of sound

Of energy This is Ali Ali Shahid Muhammad A Tribe called Quest We call him up because he is the DJ and producer for a tribe called Quest And for Peter, tribe, they're the prototype I was obsessed with them They were, they are, like that shiny red apple

They define the category and in fact I guess up until my wedding weekend Best weekend of his life, he says Or I guess now it would be his second best Was when he was... I was 14 And you went to a tribe show It was everything I ever dreamed

a hip-hop concert experience would be. He says he spent the whole time at the front of the stage waving this hat around that said dogs. D-A-W-G-S. Because one of the lead rappers was named Fife Dog. And I held up my dog's hat so much at the concert that eventually Fife... The Fife Dogg acknowledged me

the same way I would do now if I was hosting and someone kept doing it. He just gave me the hand like, I got it. You can put the hat down now. This was a weird moment for hip-hop. Not just for Peter, but for hip-hop in general, like the early 90s. This was a moment when you had stations like Hot 97 converting to all hip-hop formats, playing, you know, NWA, Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest,

groups, you know, that were suddenly attracting loads of white suburban fans. Yet, if you listen to their lyrics, some of them at least, they were about stuff those fans could have never experienced. Struggle, oppression, lack of opportunities in the ghettos, The fact that you have young black teenagers who are living in a society where they're told that they will never amount to anything and that their lives have no value, no worth. That to me becomes the angst and the frustration and the rage, which is the embodiment of the music. I wanted to be a part of this of black culture.

Like, I felt, I've always been very interested in loving things that required defense. And hip hop is definitely that. From the beginning, it was initially shunned by Black Radio because it was thought to be indecent. Then you had the whole Tipper Gore thing. I love things like that. I don't know why. And I think I do always see hip hop in that sort of light, in the way that it needs defense. Can we talk about your fracas with Nikki Minash?

Of course. That's my paragraph too. If God forbid I drop dead tomorrow. It's Peter Rosenberg on Hot 97, blah, blah. Next paragraph. In 2012. Nikki Minaj is this rapper from Queens, hugely talented rapper. Oh, wait.

She's not the one on American Idol, is she? Oh, okay. Now I have a face for the name. Uh-huh. And she kind of blew everyone away on this Kanye song called Monster. You know, she was with... all these big rappers and Jay-Z was on the song and she blew everyone out of the water.

I thought she was really good. Then I thought she was the total package. In fact, the year-dress her from Milan, that's the... I thought she was really good. I thought she was a natural and beautiful. Like, I thought she was the total package. In fact, the year before it all happened...

2011. I pulled her aside at Summer Jam. And I said, hey, I think you could be the greatest female artist of all time, the greatest female rap artists of all time. And I just want you to know that in thinking that, I'm going to hold you to a high standard. So I probably will say things about you. You said all of that? Yeah. In a really quick moment, too.

It was really brief. She probably wouldn't even remember it. But it happened. I would remember that if someone said that. And I said, I think you could be the greatest. She had all this underground cred, right? And then how did she spend that creed? Well, she started making popier and popier records.

culminating in the following song, which, if you are me, you've not been able to get out of your head for a week. She made this song called Starships. Let's go to the beach each. Let's go get away. They say what they're going to say. Have a drink. Starships is a blatant pop song. Lowest common denominator. So I didn't like the song.

You listen to that song and you cannot tell that it's not a song by Katie Perry or Pink or it could be anyone. So all of a sudden, who is the underground cred? cop But Peter Rosenberg Several mornings for his segment called The Realness He would get on there And play a clip of Starship

Check out this hip-hop That's hardcore hip-hop Then would this song be considered Another hardcore hip-hop song? Stop it, that's not fair That's not fair Maybe she's just There is a real question being asked

At the center of this Which is what is this music? where the boundaries are. And also, is this where hip hop is going? Is it just let me cash in and just follow the trends of what white music is doing? It would be too strong to call it like you felt betrayed as a music fan? Yeah, it felt like, come on. It just in the moment it felt like you're a hip hop star.

Why would you do this? This is not for us. When core hip hop artists make pop songs, it upsets me. because it can be a moment that blurs and messes up hip-hop. To be frank, this song right here, Starship, is literally one of the most sell-out songs in hip-hop history. Just to put that comment in a tiny bit more context for just a second. Now, we mentioned, of course, the history, right?

That so many forms of popular music have been invented by black people, co-opted by white people, jazz, blues, rock. We all know the story. Now, according to Frannie Kelly, One of the hosts of a podcast called Microphone Check, which is a hip-hop podcast from NPR Music. According to her, 2013 was the first year that no black artist had a number one song.

Since 1958, since they started the Hot 100 charts, this is the first year where no black artist is made to number one. Now, this may be a blip, may not be, but what's clear is that there is a new force in town, a style of music called EDM. EDM is a meaningless acronym that stands for electronic dance music. And it's like, you know... It's more like an oomse, ins, oomse than a boom-back.

It's sort of an amalgam of synthy, techno-e, eurro, poppy stuff, and it has taken over. What happened with EDM was just so glaring and fast. And then to see that sort of start to creep into hip-hop was scary for people. Because according to Franie Kelly, what's scary is that EDM is a style of music that's meant to work on any dance. floor with any crowd. So in a way, it's like a music without history on purpose. A lot of the criticism of like EDM is that it is all about money. It is the corporatization of a genre with a long history. So in some ways, I think the root of the protest is don't sell our stuff to the highest bidder. It's a little context. In anyhow, after one of the most sell

out songs in hip hop history. Whoa. Listen to it. After Peter Trash Talks, Nicky Minaj's starships, we arrive at that year's summer jam. 2012. And that year, Nikki Minaj was going to

be one of the big headliners. Plan was for her to perform on the main stage inside Giant Stadium. But outside the stadium in the parking lot, earlier in the day, there's the festival stage, which is where the underground backpack kids hang out, and that's Rosenberg's zone. So he's introducing the acts

on that stage. Now, hold on. Before, I get to the real hip hop of the day because I see the real hip hop head sprinkled in here I see him I said

in trying to hype up this crowd I know there's some chicks here waiting to sing Starships later I'm not talking to y'all right now that bullshit crowd kind of goes

ooh and a little bit like there's a cheer nothing crazy though just a regular cheer it's not like I didn't realize a bomb was dropped

I forgot that not only was the festival stage live streaming, but it was live streaming on her website. And her core fans, her barbs, as they're known, are 13-year-old girls. And when they see Peter say that,

they go wild. And they go out on the internet and saying, who is this Rosenberg guy? What is his deal? And he says, within minutes. It got back to Nikki and her people. Before she went on stage? Before she went on stage.

Oh, this is interesting. So then there's this backstage conversation, Rosenberg basically as soon as he gets off stage, his boss. My boss comes out, pokes his head around the curtain and goes, did you say something about Nikki Minaj? I was like, and I legit didn't remember. I'm like, oh, yeah, I did. And he's like, yeah, well, she just canceled the show.

So she's not coming. And I was like, oh. And I looked at my phone and I go to Twitter. Sitting on the stage, the crowd's all out there. I'm at Giant Stadium. And I look on Twitter and I go to trends. And on the main trend page, it just says Peter Rosenberg. And I was like, oh, wow, this is nuts.

This is a Sunday afternoon at like 5 o'clock, and I was like the third most trending thing in the world. I was just watching my name get bigger in a moment. Hot 97's DJ Peter Rosenberg. One of the big dramas that happened in New York. I was reading just my name over and over and over again. The dude Rosenberg, the dude from Hot 97. Peter Rosenberg.

All these people saying, I don't know who this guy is, but he's dissing my favorite artist. I'm just really disappointed, and I don't understand how she... I was reading, Who is this guy? What he said, that Starship song was not hip-hop. Peter Rosenberg. Man, that's not real hip-hop. He only one man say one thing, and everybody suffers for this. He must have gotten some serious credit from this.

He, yes. Not only was his name getting out there, but it was getting out there as, I'm the gatekeeper. I'm the defender. I'm the defender. The realness. I couldn't appreciate it at first because I didn't know if I was maybe going to get fired for messing up Summer Jam.

Because Nikki isn't beefing with the station. I wouldn't dare come on your stage or even say something to my fan. She's calling in, you know, mad at the station. Buster Rhymes gets involved, trying to broker a deal, Funkmaster Flex gets involved. We exchange some emails. They're trying to reach a detente.

It becomes a months-long process. Nuts. If they say unanimously, no, you were wrong about that song. This is our song we included in our map of what's going on. Stop trying to draw the map. What do you say to that? In your, inside of you?

I think my gut reaction is, you know nothing. You don't draw the map. You need people like us to draw the map or there's nothing or what is there. If we don't get to determine certain things, who does? We should leave that to the craze 13. year olds who may not even like this artist in two years? As a woman hearing that... Is Frannie Kelly again?

This idea that young girls will hear Starships and say, oh, that's hip-hop. That's what I want to hear. That's what I'm going to judge everything against. It's wildly unfair to the intelligence of young girls. Frannie says they can figure out the difference between hip-hop and pop. They don't need help. It's insulting. And furthermore...

When he chose Starships to single out, it felt revealing a... of another layer to this debate that people weren't saying out loud. Which is it when people refer to things as quote, real hip-hop. That's usually code for aggressive, street, masculine. Authentic. Whereas when they say pop, that's usually code for... Feminine, which is a perversion of the music, period.

And so there is this idea that, you know, people make songs for the ladies, which implies that all the rest of them are songs that we can't hear or, God forbid, understand. Okay, so all of this was swirling around months go by. And then fast forward. To the week before the next summer jam. This is 2014? 2013, I mean? 2013, yeah.

The feud is still going. At this point, it's a year later. But according to Andrew, Nikki decides it's time to settle. Maybe because she wanted to perform it that year's summer jam. So. Nikki Minaj sits down with radio station Hot 97 to clear the air with DJ Peter Rosenberg. She comes to the station before Summer Jam to make her piece. and they do this whole interview with Rosenberg and Nikki Minaj and Ebro, the boss, is moderating.

On the air? On the air. Rosenberg. So this is on you, sir. Where would you like this interview to go? I don't know. I'm excited to see Nikki because it's very odd to have someone that you don't know very well who's become like such a fixture in your life. Like I've always wondered.

I was always like, I wonder if Nikki knows that she's come up every day in my life for 350 days. like point that where Starships got played on my wedding and it was like the biggest deal at my wedding was Starships playing at my wedding. After some opening remarks, Peter basically apologizes. I am sorry that things went as left as they did. I never had ill feelings about you as a human being, ever. Basically says I have nothing against you as a person.

Beyond my sort of distaste for that song. That's cool. It's water under the bridge. Do you mean that? Yeah. She then goes out of her way to apologize to her fans for skipping out on the gig. But, um... Then the gloves come off.

You know what? Like, I get it. Like, that's what you do. I guess, to me, I just don't know your resume. You know what I'm saying? So, I never found you funny. I never found you entertaining. I never found you smart.

I just found you annoying. Because, you know, I grew up in New York. I've grown up on Hot 97. Like, I know Angie and I know Flex and Mr. C and all these people. whether they like me or whether or not we get along, I just know their resume. But like with you, I was just like, who are you? I don't recognize you as an authority on what's authentic. To me, you don't have enough of a resume to make those comments.

Who are you to tell me what to do? What people don't understand is that when I came, when I was doing this, I took a lot of from people, from men. She was like my whole career. There have just been random men who have. have been in a position to stop me and tell me why I'm not good enough. I just dealt with a lot of stuff from guys. And here you are.

I don't know you. You're just some random man. And then Ebro jumps in and kind of jokingly trying to lighten the mood goes, And you're white. I didn't even say that. White. She never implied anything about white. She implied the men.

I did. And then she jumps in and goes, no, no, no. That too. Being white also struck a chord with me, if I'm being honest, because I was like, Yo, he's on a black station dissing black people. Like, I don't, I just didn't like the feel of it. And here you get back to that idea, that category idea that like, when you don't have that like set list of criteria to help you figure out who's in and who's out,

it's all about a gut feeling into Nikki Minaj at that moment. To have a white guy from the suburbs tell her a black woman from Queens that she's not hip-hop enough. It just felt wrong. But then Ali Shahid Muhammad from Tribe called Quest put it this way. Maybe it feels wrong, but maybe this is actually evolution. 40 years into it, that's what it's supposed to be. At some point, we're all going to be so far removed from the origin that no one would then qualify, really. But if you're going to be the person to carry the torch, I guess, to be the gatekeeper,

then at some point what qualifies you? It's your heart. That's that feeling. You could be Bill Gates kid. and still understand the struggle enough to be like, yo, I'm riding with that. Yeah.

And I want to fight for that. I was like, yo, he's on a black station dissing black people. Like, I don't, I just didn't like the feel of it. Who am I going to diss if not black people? I'm on a hip-hop station. I have to dis black people sometimes. If I diss white rappers.

Absolutely not. You watch your mouth, sir. You only want me to go at Mac Miller? I mean, who am I going to go at? And Mac Lamore. And Macle-Lam. We have plenty of artists now. I used to only dis-wifers.

rappers, but as I've gotten further along, I felt I earned the right to diss all things I didn't like. Oh, I was like... Oh, I was waiting on the block. You'd have been waiting with the wretches, you know? I was like, I don't know who weighed that... Who weighed the Mickey have out here? Rosenberg, to this day, takes credit for her saying, my next project is going to be a hardcore hip-hop album.

When her album's awesome, you will see me take lots of credit for it. Absolutely. She called me the other day, and I was half asleep. And she's like, hello? I know you're thinking, why is this bitch calling me? And I was like, not at all, what's going on? And she wanted to ask me about her new song. And the amazing thing was she wanted to ask me an opinion on something.

And it makes me feel ultimately super special. So yes, Peter, like, so what does that mean? Like, if you are now a gatekeeper, you, white guy from suburban Maryland, I am a very commercial radio station, what does that mean for hip-hop? Does that mean that hip-hop has, by default been co-opted? Because, like, here you are. I don't know. I mean, I feel like hip hop is in a better place now

than before I started doing this. I would break it down on paper and go, let me tell you where we were when I started my underground show in 2007. And let me tell you where I think we are in 2014. And let me show you how many of those artists I broke and supported and worked hard with and talked to the label about and pushed.

And how many I had an involvement with, I think you'd see a really high percentage. So that was part of his answer. We asked Andrew the same question. It's complicated. I mean, look, I don't think that hip- Pop is dead. There was some quote, Frank Zappa, I think, said jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny. Like, I don't think hip hop is wonderful. Yeah. That should be our title.

Hip-Up is it dead. It just smells funny. But I do think, I think hip-hop isn't dead. It just smells funny. It always smells a little funky. Huge thanks to Andrew Morantz and the New Yorker magazine for letting us borrow Andrew for a beat. Definitely check out his story in the New Yorker magazine. It's called Old School. It's a great story. It goes into way more detail than we can get into here. Also, big thanks to Franny Kelly and Alicia Haid Muhammad,

who together they co-hosts the NPR podcast Microphone Check. And, well, I'm Chad I boom-ron. I'm Robert Kulwich. Thank you for listening. Oh, and before we go, just one last thing. So, lest you think that hip-hop has arrived at this new, like, quote, post-racial situation, which, you know, for a second, we were like, maybe we're just thinking out loud with Peter. He was like, no way, no. God, if there's one thing I could demand that

air during this piece, it would be this statement right here. Nothing has driven me more crazy over the course of my time in hip-hop than white people who come up to me and go, you know, and it used to be really bad when he first came out. You know, Eminem is just so talented. I don't even listen to hip-hop, but Eminem? I mean, now he's good. Well, if you don't listen to hip-hop, why the hell should I care what your thoughts on Eminem are? And how do you know that he's good? No, you know that he's white. You know that he's white. And is Eminem good? Yes, it just so happens that he's as good as you, as you're guessing he is. But that's random. You don't even know that. Eminem could be any, could have been one of the dudes from Millie Vanilli and you would have thought it was

great. And that drives me nuts. And so anytime I think about, oh, we're post-racial, just look at what M&M concerts look like and what the sales look like. And you can be instantly reminded that even though M&M has no experience that average suburban white America could ever identify with, I mean, culturally the experience you went through is much more common with someone who went with, went through a black struggle than any sort of regular white suburban life. And this is a guy who came up in a rough situation in a million ways. was the odd man out all the time, never had anything, and then makes it, and all of a sudden the fact that people are like,

oh, I so identify with him. What is it? Why do I identify with a guy who's from a trailer park, from a history of drug abuse, who raps about things that I'd be terrified of if a black man was saying it? But I identify with him so much. And then Eminem, because he's amazing, raps about this same thing. He does a song called Dear White America where he tells them,

You're an idiot. You let your kids listen to me, but you wouldn't let them listen to anyone else just because I'm white. You're an idiot. And they love it. It's unbelievable. My name is Ayushu Shrivastava, and I'm calling from the University of Chicago. Radio Lab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

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