StarTalk Radio - The Science of Hip Hop with GZA (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 21, 2013

Your ideas about rap music may change when Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice “spit verses” with rapper GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan and hip hop expert Dr. Christopher Emdin. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to another edition of StarTalk Radio. Welcome to another edition of StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History. And as is common, I have with me my comedic co-host Chuck Nice. Hey.

Chuckie baby. How are you, Neil? Welcome back. Thank you, my friend. Excellent. Good to be back. Always good to be back. You know, whatever my show is on, you come in and mess with it. Or mess it up.

We're not sure yet. Jury's still out. So this week we're going to be talking about hip-hop music, and we're going to be featuring my interview with JZA. JZA. JZA. I can't tell you how disturbing that name is. We get back to that name in a minute.

In addition to you, I've back to that name in a minute. In addition to you, I've got to share the stage with you here. Okay. If you don't mind. Christopher Emdin. Yes, sir. M-D-M-D-I-N. That's correct.

You're an assistant professor up at Columbia? Yes, I am. Excellent. And your title is what? Assistant professor of science education. Science education. And director of secondary school initiatives in the Urban Science Education Center. Nice, nice. So you care about just folks in the inner city getting educated?

That's the majority of my work, yeah. Educated in science. Okay, what do you do outside of the majority of the work? Well, you know, I listen to hip-hop. Okay, all right. And that keeps you, so that fleshes out. I mean, most of it, right? I listen to hip-hop, you know

You know, I check out your YouTube videos, you know, I watch some HGTV a little bit everything and you learn how to tie a bow tie Oh, of course. Yeah, that is tied. That's not clip on. No, not at all. Let me check it nice Yeah, yeah, so I mean this is because the bow tie is the emergent style in hip hop performers I'm told. It is in some. You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. Is there a hip hop artist that wears a bow tie?

I'm trying to think of one that... You know, they wear them on the award shows. I was going to say Farnsworth Bentley, but he doesn't quite classify as an artist. He doesn't quite qualify as an artist. You know. But the look is becoming more trendy, so I might have to move to something else. Well, I'm honored that you get so dressed up for this show. So GZA, founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang.

Wu-Tang. Wu-Tang Clan. That's right. Right? Right? And so... Shaolin represent. Yeah.

Well, that's how that rolls. And so you've used hip-hop to help educate people? Is that how you come at this? Yeah, absolutely. So research-wise, you know, I get into classrooms, and my goal is to engage urban youth of color used hip-hop to to help educate people is that how you how you come at this yeah absolutely so research-wise i you know i get into classrooms and my goal is to engage urban youth of color in science and so that meant changing curriculum and meant training teachers it meant a whole bunch of different things and i wasn't getting the results that i wanted and i decided to sort of step into the dimension of interrogating youth culture and that hip-hop just came out of it oh okay and so

they were so deeply engaged in hip-hop culture, so completely disengaged in science, so they had to find a way where there were some intersections between hip-hop and science. So science, it's not just learning, it's science. No, science in particular. So there's learning and that learning part is powerful, but the connections with science is even more powerful. So there are connections between hip-hop and science.

Billions, billions, trillions. Like the Doppler effect of a speeding bullet. What? That's a section. Oh really? Okay, I'm gonna do it myself. It could be a lesson. It could be a lesson.

It could be a lesson? Okay. Nothing is sort of outside of the realms of possibility here. So if they wanna know about bullets, then hey, we can have that conversation. The Doppler effect, there's a high pitch frequency shift as it comes towards you and then a low pitch uh shift as it emerges so it goes like that right unless you're hit then you only hear that i'm just saying well you know rappers actually try to create so kanye west has his verse where he was like you know i'm shooting

and i'm like being on being like he makes the sound he makes it got the doppel effect in the game in the song without even knowing it and so those are the kind of things we explore right so i'm like kanye west makes that noise that's that's the sound of a bullet does that connect to anything is that arbitrary and that becomes you know the way to spark conversation nice yeah nice so jiz uh how do you it's like capital g capital z capital a and you said the name to spark conversation nice yeah nice so jizza how do you it's like capital g capital z capital a and you said the name's got to go you said well that's a weird i'm gonna listen i know there's rizza and jizza and uh let's find out let's find out how the man got his name okay okay because my my record show his his born name was gary. So, yeah. I'm sure his parents are very happy he went with GZA.

Let's find out. I wouldn't critique GZA's name knowing that there are like a million people in Wu-Tang also. Oh, yeah, yeah. So you got to watch it. So, you know, I love the name GZA. A wise statement. Let's find out how he got the name. My guest this week is JZA.

What's up? Did I say that right? Yes, you did. Let me hear you say it just so I can confirm it. JZA. I said it right. You said it right.

All capital letters. GZA. But that's not the only moniker you've had. Genius, Justice, Born Gary. I had nicknames growing up. I had different MC-ing names.

Names I used as a MC. All MCs have to have a name. It's not, my name is MC Joe. Well, nowadays some guys are using their name. All right. Jim Jones. I can't do that. I grew up hearing MC this and MC that.

It can't be just MC. Because MCs are more like superheroes right no they would you have to have those names they had the power of the party I mean they control so you were an MC yes what was your MC name Divine MC Justice Gary G Baby G Gangsta G but right now just a genius just a and the genius who where that come from RZA cousin RZA, Genius, GZA. And the Genius, where'd that come from? RZA, Cousin RZA, ODB. They named me that years ago. We had this crew called the All In Together Now crew. It was myself, RZA, and Dirty.

And he was the scientist. RZA was the scientist. Dirty was the professor or the specialist. And then they named me the Genius. But I didn't want the title because people expected so much the genius. But I didn't want the title, because people expected so much from it. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So I didn't want it. At one time, I called myself the professor.

I took Dirty's name and put it on a fly, and he was mad. So how important is identity in hip-hop? You don't hear James Taylor say, I'm James, I mean, he's 18, James in the teats! I mean, it seems 18. James and the Teets. It seems unique to that culture. I really think that it isn't, though. People express identity based on where they are at a certain point in time.

So human beings have their core identities as who you really are. You have your role identities, that sort of identity influx. And then you have like, you know. Identity influx. Influx, right? So depending on the role you're playing at a different time. Yeah, you have it. This is many monikers and this is why mcs has because he had different emergent cells cells coming through you know so sometimes he's a genius where he's just dropping science psychologists call it multiple personality disorders a lot of mcs have multiple personalities man this is true um so so i think i think you know

the naming is in in being able to call forth different pieces of myself in different points in time. Okay. That makes sense, absolutely. It's like you identify not only with yourself, but your circumstance. Right. Okay. All right, so as they move forward, they accommodate the needs of the moment and whatever name that requires. But it is interesting that many of them change their name.

Right. I don't think James Taylor was born Arnold Schmednick and then he changed it right i mean so the notion of changing the name also enables them to match the moment yeah be a different person when we come back more with our interview with jimmy on star talk welcome back to star talk i'm neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm with my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck, you tweet. Yes I do. Chuck Nice comic.

At Chuck Nice comic. No, somebody else was Chuck Nice apparently. Believe it or not, there's like 28 of them. I couldn't believe it. Okay. I'll find you on Chuck Nice comic. And I've got with me Chris Emden. Yes. Professor up at Columbia University. Thanks for coming in to do this. Thank you.

You're an expert on urban culture and making, trying ways to educate a secondary school population is great. Yeah, making connections. Making connections. And in particular, a science connection. Yeah. And we're celebrating my interview with GZA, the hip-hop master, GZA,

who is founder of the Wu-Tang Clan. Wu-Tang Clan, I get that G in the right place there. And I chatted with him about what role science might play as the muse of an artist, in particular of a musician. Let's find out what he told me. You got my whole astrophysics vocabulary oozing out of your rap lyrics. And so how does that happen? I love it.

I just want to understand it. It's just an interest in science and planets and the universe. And so, well, there's plenty of people who are interested in it, but it doesn't infiltrate. Well, I'm a, you know, I'm an artist first. I'm a writer. I write mostly music. I'm working on novels and scripts now. Really? Okay. Yes, I'm an artist first. I'm a writer. I write mostly music. I'm working on novels and scripts now. Really? Okay.

Yes, I am. But I always thought as an emcee, you know, growing up, it's always been about being lyrical for us. Where'd you grow up? Well, I grew up in Brooklyn. I'm born in Brooklyn, lived in Staten Island. I lived in all the boroughs. Okay. Staten Island? Yes, Staten Island. Shaolin. We call it shaolin wu-tang but um you know it started from back then we it was always about being lyrical and writing the tightest lyric and sharpest lyric and being witty and also incorporating things around us and anything we can incorporate into music like i'm not a sports fan at all but every now and then I always incorporate

things about sports. So it's it's you're reaching into pop culture and there it is and it's there for you. Yes. So all right but were your earliest songs that way? Some of the songs some of our lyrics we went we went there years ago I remember one time RZA had this rhyme it was about conception being born uh-huh when conceiving and it started it was a line about when my mind flashed back to a eerie mood when I was just a sperm cell in a fallopian tube. He was about 13 then. That's a great story. So in Brooklyn, if you start taking an interest in the universe and there are other

rhymers, rappers, you had to be a little weird for doing that. Isn't that right? It depends on, well, it comes off as not being normal to most. I wasn't normal doing it, and I wasn't even a rapper. Well, it depends on how you deliver it. If I'm delivering it in a way where I'm like, Earth is the third planet, and the sun shines light on it. It's not done in that way.

That doesn't play. Right. Not in Brooklyn, not in, okay. But if it's in a way where you're saying, my universe run like clockworks forever, my words are pulled together, sudden change in the weather, the nature and the scale of events don't make sense, a storm with no one

in, you're drawn in by mints, gravity has gone mad, clouds of dust and debris, moving at colossal speeds, they crush an MC. So you speak about the universe and planets but you still incorporate the element of mc and the mood and the and the mood and the feeling the feeling yes and so you've embraced the universe a lot of cool vocabulary there i make a big deal of the fact that our vocabulary is very accessible.

A galaxy, a dwarf, a black hole, Big Bang. And a lot of them are even one syllable. So I'm guessing that that makes it easier to rhyme and easier to pulse into a lyric. Yes. Rather than the words of geologists who are... Of course. You know, Rakim, I usually quote him on some of his lyrics. And he had this line years ago, and this was in the 80s, where he said,

I'm the creator of the alphabets. Now let's communicate, but not translate the situation straight. No dictionaries necessary to use. Big words do nothing but confusing to lose. So there it is. Half short, twice strong. Beautiful. The only difference is if I use the word Nova, I'll be speaking about a star,

unlike the average rapper who will probably be talking about a car. I love that. Wow, that's great. That is fantastic. From fallopian tubes to exploding stars. Exploding stars, except the rhyme about the fallopian tube, that is an ectopic pregnancy to be honest. In the fallopian tube.

In the fallopian tube, you don't really want that. I mean he was 13. I mean the fact that he was gone there. So he went from there to like you know basically cosmic storms. Exactly. Which a lot of people don't even realize that there are cosmic storms. There's storms on Saturn, on Jupiter. Jupiter has a big giant red spot, it's a storm. Right. even realize that there are cosmic storms. There's storms on Saturn, on Jupiter.

Jupiter has a big giant red spot. It's a storm. You call it a red spot because that's what it looked like to the first people who named it. But you look a little closer, you study it, it's a cyclone larger than the planet Earth raging on Jupiter for 300 years. Mars has dust storms.

Dust storms kick up and you can't see what's happening on the surface. That's where the aliens can redistribute their... Absolutely, yes. They can cover their tracks. That's where they cover their tracks. So this thing about science getting into pop culture leaders, I'm curious about that. Have you seen that?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm just like... Yes, you've seen it, but have you... The little lesson you just described just now, if you introduce that to a young person, they would be like, oh man, I gotta spit a verse about that. And so what- Did you say spit a verse? Spit a verse, meaning I have to write a rhyme and then perform it.

To say spit a verse from someone wearing a bow tie, I just have to cover the bow tie so I can hear you correctly. See, now you're forcing me to wanna kick a rap, spit a rap on here. I may have to do that to prove myself. Just to gain street cred here. So street cred. All right. But just to make so many sort of insightful points in that clip, the first of which was, you know, a lot of people do hip hop pedagogy or think that rap pedagogy is, you know, like

kids like rap, let's rap. And they have the kids create raps or they perform raps and it doesn't work. And the reason why it doesn't work is because it's just like what goes on in school already to rhyme. Right. And that doesn't work. And so the distinction between, you know, saying something that rhymed and being a prolific MC, which requires analogy, metaphor, drawing connections. And it seems to be mostly cross-referencing. Yeah.

for, drawing connections, weaving stories. And it seems to be mostly cross-referencing. Yeah. Which means you have to learn and know some knowledge here, some knowledge here, in order to access that to bring it together. Absolutely. I mean, I was working with a young person once, and we get into the classroom, and I want him to learn about water. He's like, okay, I'm teaching a lesson.

He's like, yeah, your lesson is all right. So I said, you know what, you're a rapper. Spit a rap about it. So he starts rapping, and he's rapping about everything but water. He's like, I'm fly, I'm sick. I'm like, you had one line. He's like, I flow like water, and by the way, I'm fly and I'm sick. And so I was like, well, this is not going to work. Go home. Because he's not actually making it work. He's not making it work. So I say, go home, read the textbook, come back, and write a

new rhyme. He comes back in the morning, he's's like yo, it's type hard to spit a 16 about each slow, right? And what that means, you know, I'll interpret it means that it's challenging Okay It's challenging for me to be able to write a rap about water if I'm really gonna Understand the concept of water so I need at least a week to do it justice or no, there was a week to learn enough about water to then know how to reach in and and and pull out the things out of it to really to really make it a real rap when water gets cold it gets less dense when you freeze it my cycle for that, for those bars.

That's more coffee house than it is. Because I'm so cool, I'm water ice. You know, for you, we'll just snap and we'll just make it like a poetry thing. So it doesn't have to necessarily rhyme. Okay. So like slam poetry. Slam poetry. Just slam it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so that's so, so you bring to a point I hadn't appreciated even during my interview with GZA that the more pockets of knowledge you have command of, the more creative you can be as a rap artist. And, of course, you need the metaphor. And the more capacity you have to even make metaphorical references. Absolutely. The more prolific the MCs, the more complex the lyrics are. And the more complex the lyrics are, it's based on the ability to make connections that the layperson can't see, which is inherently scientific. I like it. That was good.

That worked. So you got a quick something here? I got 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Spit! I'm a physicist, lyricist, spit in this ridiculousness, so witness the ignorance I dismiss. I have to do that first so people know I can rap.

Then I can get into the topic. Then you can talk to them. Right, because I need some authenticity. You gotta earn it. You gotta earn it. So, I love Newton and plus Einstein. I like Einstein because Einstein's mind is like mine. His formula was E equals MC squared, which is weird because me is your favorite MC squared.

Right? And so what I did there is Einstein the formula, but if I just said that, it would make no sense. So I have to make a connection between the formula equals MC squared so the fact that me is your favorite MC squared and I can say you know ease energy M's mass use the speed of light which is a constant if our MC I would so be MC squared when we come back more with my interview with jizzah and Chuck nice and Chris nice and crisp and then we'll be right back.

Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You can find us on the web at startalkradio.net. We're also in the Twitterverse at StarTalk Radio. And of course, on Facebook, you can like us there, StarTalk Radio. By the way, StarTalk appears in three media now. We're on broadcast radio. We're on the Nerdist channel on YouTube. You can find us there. And, of course, you can download our podcast at any time from our website or from iTunes.

I've got with me in studio Chuck Nice, tweeting at ChuckNiceComic. That's right. Chuck, you've got a show on HGTV. HGTV. We were chatting about it at the break. You go into, it's called Home. Home Strange Home. That's creepy.

Yes. You go into people's homes and just talk about it. I'm the strange part in the Home Strange Home. You find weird homes and just talk about it. And basically people show me around their weird houses. And it's actually very cool. I'm not inviting you to my home. Don't worry.

The cameras might be like in 60 minutes the cameras show up. Absolutely. But I'll look forward to that. Nah, it's gonna be a good show. Friday's HGTV. Friday's on HGTV. Chris Emdin, thanks for coming to this to comment on Jizz's clips that we have. And you tweet at Chris Emdin.

At Chris Emdin. E Emden yeah the IMD I am you tweet educational insights so I'd sweet education I tweet hip-hop I tweet science I tweet social commentary going there and bowties and bowties like the radio audience recognize that the man is wearing a self-tied orange bow tie so in my interviews with Juzza we talked about the role, certainly the role that media thinks violence plays in hip hop, and it's always played up, perhaps more than it actually needs to be or should be, or perhaps it's not even

representative of most of the hip hop that's out there. It just makes a better headline. I brought all this up with GZA, and I wanted to get his reaction to this, because you can't just sweep that under the rug. It's out there. And let's find out what GZA's reaction to when I brought up violence in hip-hop. So then there's all the songs where violence is a part of it. Is there something missing in the uninitiated listener they think is just all violence? But of course, there's somebody trying to emote in those lyrics, right?

Well, yeah, it depends on how you interpret the lyric. I mean, sometimes I run into people who say, well, 36 Chambers got me through school. And then I go back and listen to the album. I can't really, I don't see how I mean I know this is great music you know according to fans and those who's listened to Wu-Tang for years but I don't see what they're saying so it all depends on how you interpret the message well good art allows the listener the viewer to personalize what they hear or see right right because you can't you can't just take a... I look at it like this sometimes.

If they say Wu-Tang has got me through school, then automatically it pops in my head, Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing, eff what? How did that get you through school? You know, sometimes it's the first thing that... Well, to get them to explain. Maybe, I mean, maybe it was an escape. But it was a certain... you know, the timing and all that when the album came out, whatever they were going through, they were able to relate to the majority of the songs anyway. So as a whole.

Okay. It was the total philosophy and package that that represented. Personally, I don't, I'm not with the schools of thought that say people got violent because they listened to a song. People are violent, they're violent, right? Right, exactly. Right. people got violent because they listened to a song. People are violent, they're violent, right?

Right, exactly. Right, but still, it's nice to have some hope in your art. And if the art is only about violence, where am I going to, what do I reach for? You reach for the peace. You reach for the music without the violence. Like I said, I don't think it's just the whole thing about violence, it's just the way you're talking or telling your story. Because most rappers have this thing where they're from the streets and they're telling their story, and this is how I grew up, and everything I say is real, and I'm not a fake drug dealer.

I actually sold drugs and this is what I'm giving you, but it's the same story. It's like watching the same movie over and over and over and over and over. You don't want to see it anymore. You don't want to hear it. Change it. The story's been told.

The story's been told. Bored with it. In that way. In that way. Because you're not, you've spoken of violence in your songs, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. And what role does that play?

It's just part of the story. It's just part of the story to get your point across. But it's not violence in a way where it's gory or I've got to speak about the screwdriver pulling your brains out and landing all on the back seat. It would probably be done in a way where you don't see the screwdriver pulling your brains out and landing all on the back seat. It would probably be done in a way where you don't see the screwdriver. You don't see the brains.

You just see blood coming through the door. Very Hitchcock. Enjoy your own imagination. Hitchcock forces you to fill in the blanks. Shows you the edges of the violence. That's how it should be. Wow, okay, screwdriver through the bribe. Missed that.

All I know is right now I want to kill somebody. That's all I know. I don't know why, but I have a need to shoot someone. We only got like 20 seconds left. Is there, Chris, real quick, do you think there's a cultural bias against rap that you don't find against other expressions of violence in the American culture, like evening television, like everything else? I think that certainly does exist. And I think that in response to that, rappers pick up on what is sensationalized and realize that that's what gets attention. And so what could normally be a

thin slice of the culture becomes exaggerated. I gotcha. That's very perceptive. When we come back, more of my interview with GZA, and we learn about violence growing up and what impact that can have on the creativity of an artist. Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, a National Physicist here at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I also serve as director of the planetarium there. Come by, check us out when you're in town. I've got Chuck Nice with me, comedian Chuck Nice. Love having you on the show, Chuck. It's always good to be here.

And we've got Chris Emden. Chris, great that you dress up for the show. You know, I had to. Jacket and bow tie with a matching hanky in your jacket pocket. Pocket squares. Absolutely, pocket squares. Gotta do it. Right.

I got you here because we're slotting my interview with GZA, GZA. And we talked about his life as a rap artist. And I wanted to get behind his modern life and find out, because we were trying to probe sort of what what his his background is did he grow up in a dangerous neighborhood did did that influence i just i just didn't know and so let's find out what he says about his background and find out how that

influenced his creativity check it out uh in your life how much danger did you were you exposed to as a kid what kind of neighborhood were you in to as a kid? What kind of neighborhood? Were you in like a pansy neighborhood or tough neighborhood? You know, I grew up in a hood. It may have been tough for outsiders, but it wasn't necessarily tough growing up in it. That's a perceptive point because it's all you know. It's just where you grow up. But, you know, I had working parents.

I never missed a day without eating. Okay. I didn't live in poverty, but we weren't rich or anything like that. And I grew up in the normal urban cities, the hoods. Right. Any violence? Every now and then. I mean, I've grown up with a lot of people that's not living now.

I was killed. But that was the path they chose to take. I mean, we all grew up together and we learned right from wrong. I think most people grow up in neighborhoods where no one dies, right? I mean, so for you to say, well, it was sort of, you know, there's some violence. Some people don't. I mean, you say that so casually, but that's not a, I mean, not many people can say that. Because in some neighborhoods it's normal for people to, you know, for those things to happen. Right. It just was. I mean, my many people can say that. Because in some neighborhoods, it's normal for people to put those things to happen. It just was.

I mean, my father had those stories. Right. People. But I think any danger. Somebody got shot just for wearing the wrong shirt. Oh, yeah. See, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like that. I mean, I lived in Jamaica, Queens at a time where they had gangs in the 70s, the Seven Crowns.

And that was a big gang out there. But I don't think it ever affected me. Right. You were outside of it. I think all the dangers- You were better to not be a part of it. Yeah. I think the dangers that I came across were dangers I put myself into, like stupid stuff

you do as a child, like walking on the rooftop. Oh, on the, I know, on the ledge of the rooftop. Yes, on the ledge of the rooftop, or playing in elevator shafts. You know, I even have this rhyme on one of my songs where I start off by saying, Pitch a bloodbath in elevator shafts. Because I've known people that lost limbs and died in elevator shafts and we used to play in them. So those were like the dangers. All right, so some of that ends up in your lyric.

But then we hear these other rap songs where it's, what do we do? I mean, so who's who's got the biggest influence on the next generation rap okay so i'll agree to that so now you got the portfolio of lyrics in the rap in the rap repertoire all right i got you telling me about the universe and where i'm with that but you're not the only rapper out there. So in the end of the day, who's going to win? Eight million rappers. Who's going to win?

Those that make timeless music and timeless lyrics are going to win. And others will fade fast. The universe is the most timeless thing we know. And this is one of the longest spinning records on airwaves. I hadn't thought of it that way but it's certainly spinning and it actually has grooves exactly put a needle on it there's these most people you know you look through a telescope it looks like it's just a flat disc but it's actually very many there's like thousands of separate rings in here that's my favorite planet that That's why it's here. I never thought of it as a place for the music of the spheres. Scratching the cosmos.

I think of a record when I look at that. Yeah. There he goes. Look at that. I love how you just told GZA that he has lost to the universe. I didn't say that. So how do you parlay a violent background as an educator? You know that some kids have a violent or not nurturing background. How do you parlay that into science education?

I mean, realizing first and foremost that science is everywhere. It's all around us. Of course. And that's something that we all agree with. So you exploit that fact. Of course you exploit it. So you say, you know, I work with teachers and say,

before you go teach a young person, you need to go with a notepad and walk through the neighborhood and read the neighborhood through the eyes of a scientist. So if I'm talking about weathering in an earth science class, I'm looking at the rocks in the park around me. If I'm talking about how the building is constructed, if there are alloys in the metals, I look at where I can find those examples within their life worlds to bring back. And then also start making connections between the scientist and the MC, where corollaries exist you know what is it about Galileo saying no the earth does move damn it you know and and everyone's

saying no and how does that how does that sort of make a connection to how MC sees the world and says no this is the way things are in my hood I want to I want to get back to that when we return on StarTalk Radio. We're back on StarTalk Radio. Before the break, we were talking about how to parlay the life experience of a kid in the inner city into an educational, scientifically enlightened experience. And that's what you do. That's what you think about. In fact, you have experience. And that's what you do. That's what you think about. In fact, you have a book. What's the title? Urban Science Education

for the Hip Hop Generation. Absolutely. That's awesome. That's a rhyme right there. That was purposeful. That's why the title is, you know, Urban Science Education for the Hip Hop Generation. So tell me more about when you walk into the inner city, how do you, what goes on in your head when you go back to the classroom? I mean exactly what I described earlier, depending on what is-

By the way, you're a professor at a university, so you're teaching teachers. I'm teaching teachers. Yeah, all right. But I'm also going in classroom and teaching young people also. Just to make sure that what I do when I teach teachers is authentic. Because that's a key piece of hip hop is keeping it real. Otherwise you're floating somewhere in the academic- There you go. In the hallowed halls.

Man, it's easy when you get around a bunch of other professors. We just end up speaking to each other so much that we just become removed from the rest of the world. Right. And there's a lot of pipe smoking going on. Oh yeah. Pipe smoking and bow ties. I'm halfway there.

Right. All right. So it's just going into the neighborhood through that lens of a scientist and trying to understand what the phenomena around you, how that phenomena can be explained scientifically and using that as an example to teach young people. Right, because when I think of violence, I can think of a dead person and the trajectory of the decomposition of a body. Right.

Right. I mean, that's kind of interesting. Absolutely. Right. I mean, initially you're the same temperature as the air. And then since you're dead, you're not generating energy anymore. So your body temperature begins to cool. So everyone says the body feels cold.

But in fact, it's not actually cold. Because all it drops is to the room temperature. And you don't think of room temperature things as being cold. But the body is so commonly warm to you that anything less than that, you're going to say it feels cold. So you can go there, you can put biology in there, not just... You can go anywhere. Anywhere.

Even when you talk about hip hop more broadly, because we're talking a lot about rap pedagogy, and I think there's a distinction between rap and hip hop that we haven't even talked about. Oh, really? Yeah. That's a whole piece of the equation we haven't touched yet. I mean rap is an artifact of hip hop culture. Hip hop culture is so much more complex. Oh, okay. So hip hop is the cult, rap is not the culture, hip hop is the culture.

Right, hip hop is the culture. Oh, thanks for clarifying that. Right. Alright. Well you know, we've been slotting my interview with GZA. Alright, and you can't have GZA, founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, unless we get him to spit a verse. So that's what we did! Let's check it out! Me and JZA just jammin'.

I have here one of your lyrics. I think you said it earlier but I want to like the privilege of reciting it with you. Why universe, you and I. Verse runs like clockwork forever. Words pulled together. Sudden change in the weather. The nature and the scale of events don't make sense. A storm. A storm.

A storm. You know, sometimes they fish the lyrics around a lot. A storm with no warning. You're drawn in by immense gravity that's gone mad. Clouds of dust and debris moving at colossal speeds. They crush an MC. Since this rap region is heavily packed with stars, internal mirror and a telescope.

Notice the czar. The czars. From far away they blink. We blink as a light to stroll with great distance and space between precise globes that travel in a circle of order like the tape in your cassette recorder filled with corporate slaughter, meaning the contract manifestly works. The hitman for hire with weapon in his hand, he lurks. In spite of his strange appearance, he made his clearance on a target through a crowded market.

No interference. Microphone left on the scene without a serial. Evidence consisted with organic material. I forget the other two. That's all I got. So in that set of lyrics you transition from cosmic themes to street life. Right? Walking straight into the cassette

recorder. So what, how did that, you didn't blend them. You went from one to the other. Right. Because I was speaking about traveling in a circular order. So. Cosmically. Cassette recorder rhymed with order and cassette recorder spins in a circular motion. So I just threw that in there but I said like the tape of your cassette recorder filled with corporate slaughter. So somehow I just took it back to the industry. Okay. So the cassette recorder rhymed you back from the cosmos in, but then you're talking about

meaning, the contacts. The contract. Oh, contracts. Like the contracts you sign on a dotted line, you sign your life. The hit man for hire, weapon in... I mean, this is very different from clouds and dust and debris. It's extreme. You can turn on a gun.

Like the universe, it's extreme. You turn like that. Mm-hmm. Mm, weapon in his hand, he lurks, in spite of his strange appearance. So what, what, what compelled you to turn in the lyric? That, that tape cassette, that tape recorder. You were pivoting on rhymes as you came out of the universe.

Surfing rhymes. Rhyme surfer. Is that a fair... That's fair. That's one thing about MCing. It can go anywhere. As long as it makes sense. Man, you know, in retrospect,

I should have just shut up while he was doing his lyrics. I mean, I was just totally messed up. I'm just like reading it, and he's trying to get the pulse of the rhythm there. No, it was good that way because it broke it down. It broke it down. We got to go. We got to end this hour. No.

You've been listening to Star Talk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. As always, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson bidding you to keep looking up.