The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Malcolm Jamal Warner, Candace Kelley & Weusi Baraka On The N-Word, Vulnerability, New Podcast + More

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

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Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got some special guests in the building from the Not All Hood podcast. We have Malcolm Jamal Warner, Way UC Baraka, and Candace Kelly. Welcome. Thank you. Hey, good to see you. How are the brothers and sisters feeling? Good. Life is good. Yeah, good morning. Absolutely. Yeah, the brothers and sisters feeling? We good. Life is good. Yeah, good morning.

Absolutely. Yeah, last time I was here, y'all just moved into this. You were the first interviewer? Yeah. You were the first interviewer in our new studio? That's right. Wow. Man, I love the name. Not All Hood.

Nah. Yeah, man. Who came up with that? That was what you see. Yeah. I don't even remember for real, for real. I was just like, nah. Malcolm and I had been talking about just the concept of the podcast

and how the diversity in who we are and also who we're not, right? So I was like, nah. Nah. Yeah, it feels like that when somebody say, all black people from the hood. Nah. Nah. Exactly. Exactly.

Is it that where a lot of people come from poor and disenfranchised environments, but we are not our environment? It's just that we come from a bunch of different environments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And I feel like, you know, a lot of media has been portraying us either like you're hip hop. Mm-hmm.

Well, really, you're hip hop or pop culture, right? Mm-hmm. You know? And nah, we more than that. Right. You're hip-hop or pop culture, right? And nah, we more than that. It's funny that you actually say that, Charlamagne, because I grew up in L.A. in the jungle. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my mother used to say to me, Malcolm, we live in the jungle.

We're not of the jungle. So she was very clear on me having my sights further than just my neighborhood. This is why she put me in theater and was always trying to find things for me to do to keep me from just going to school and just hanging out. But it was that, it was a certain mindset that she instilled in me, like, OK, yeah, we're here.

But, you know, this doesn't have to define us. Yeah. And you know what? We are often recognized before we enter into any room and judge. Right. And sometimes you get the question that, you know, means you really don't belong here. So when that comes, can I help you? Yeah. Right. Can I help you? Right. Right. Can I help you? Or have I seen you be here before? Or what are you doing in this neighborhood? Yes. That's the one. That's the one. Right. What are you doing in this neighborhood? This is my neighborhood. Why are you jogging here? Yeah. Why are you jogging here? Right. You know, that used to happen to my father. He would jog in the neighborhood and all the white neighbors would stop him when we first moved in.

And they would keep on stopping him. This back in the 70s. So he finally just went to the police station and said, I just need to introduce myself so that when you guys stop me, you know who you are. And it stopped. But that's kind of an example of what it means when people perceive you beforehand and what you have to do to go outside of the box to keep on proving who you are over and over again. So this really is just an ongoing conversation that we have. Malcolm likes to call a safe space, this really is just an ongoing conversation that we have. Malcolm likes to call it safe space, which it is just to say really what we want about anything, about our experiences in America. And that's really kind of key to it too.

We have people that are from diverse backgrounds, whether they're from the Caribbean or whether they're from all, you know, Africa, but you come to America and there it's kind of a thread. And those are the types of stories that we're sharing to really change this mass narrative that's already out there about us. Create a shift. Is the term hood negative, though? When people say hood, sometimes it comes off as negative.

I don't take it as a negative term. Is it a negative term? No. And I think, you know, part of the, you know, the idea of not all hood is hood is not a negative term. Hood is part of the community. When we speak of the black community, we always tend to refer to it as if it's a monolith. That's right. But there are all these different lanes to the black community, all these levels, all these different lanes.

And oftentimes we don't have a space where we can actually discuss, acknowledge, and deal with all of those levels, all those lanes. So the hood is not a bad thing. Yes, we are hood, but we're not all hood. And I think part of it is the media tends to put more focus on one aspect of the black community. Thus, we get all the stereotypes and preconceived ideas.

And hood comes from like neighborhood. Neighborhood, sure. Yeah. Right? And De La said it, you know, they call it the hood because we're not neighbors anymore. You know what I mean?

A lot of times we're not communicating with each other, right? But we're trying to change that. I did get that question a lot though. What's that? You love being on a podcast? Isn't hood negative? So I understand where you're coming from.

But just like they said, it's a neighborhood. I mean, I live in a place where I'm next to a lot of Indian neighborhood, Indian neighborhood, Jewish neighborhood. You can still call it the hood. People also associate the word hood with just us. With black hair. Yeah, with black. So it's just one of those things it's it's

it's kind of some damage that the media the pop culture the news has done and really trying to define who we are yeah i never took it as negative it was always i'm going back to the hood to mean i'm going back home to my neighborhood right exactly wherever it was i'm going to play basketball in the hood which was my neighborhood you know i mean i never took it as oh my gosh there's a place no i never took it at that i know a lot of people do but that was always just like going home you know yeah and you know we were talking about this yesterday that also when we talk about being african-american we talk about the trauma that's associated like that's really oh you know we have diabetes and high blood pressure and we're dying and the the the uh infant mortality rate but we're

happy people too it's a lot of great things. But we make it to the news when it's bad. You know, we may often make it to the news when it's bad. And so that's another, that's another thing that I think this podcast does. I think for the three of us is this show the joy and what it's like being black in spite of,

and because of the things that are going out there in this 2024. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. But yeah. How did the three of y'all come together? How did y'all get together? Look, we will do the left. Yo.

Everything on you, huh, Mr. Broda? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wayeuse and I have been friends for, jeez. For a minute, a long minute. 20 plus years. We used to both be at the national back theater festival in western salem and uh ways and i met in 1999 and we had put on the first uh poetry jam there and that turned out to be one of the biggest attractions at the theater we used to call

the midnight poetry jam so after you know all day of theater you know in every imaginable performance space in the city then people would come back to the to our venue and we would pack out at midnight poetry it'll just be open mic starting at midnight and we'd go to like 2 2 30 and it was a big attraction for the festival and then we just kept hanging out yeah and then I know Linkwick Candice from I was doing

sort of community organizing and sort of it was a event with Juneteenth yeah Juneteenth in Was it Juneteenth? Yeah. Juneteenth, right. Very timely. In Morristown, New Jersey.

And we connected there just sort of yeah, linked and when Malcolm and I decided that we were going to do this podcast we're like, yo, we need some different voices.

And I pulled her in. Yeah, yeah. And I do a lot of work a lot of commentating on various mostly legal cases. I fill in for Roland Martin too. Roland Martin Unfiltered. And I do a lot of work, a lot of commentating on various, mostly legal cases. I fill in for Roland Martin, too. Roland Martin Unfiltered. And so I'm always running my mouth. And when I got on with them, I think I ran my the N-word to twerking to music. I mean, we were just on for a long time.

It was just a nice, everybody was testifying. You know what I mean? It really was. It was just a good way to connect and get to know each other. And the conversation has been going on ever since. But the dope thing was when Way and I first started talking, we're both older fathers. So the initial idea was to do a podcast from the perspective of older black fathers. So when we first met with Candice, it was as a producer to produce this show. That's right.

And then we had that meeting. It was like 90 minutes. This is the show. Yeah, we're like, we need to add Candice as a host and expand the concept from just the black father perspective. And it turned into. Yeah. And I think your wife, cause your wife is in the background like, that sounds good, that sounds good.

Yeah. What are some of the topics you guys will be discussing? Black fatherhood. Yeah, black fatherhood. Being older fathers with younger children. How you guys handling that? Yo. What is your youngest?

How old is your youngest? We only have one. I got a two-year-old. And then I got a 22-year-old. What do y'all call older black fathers? I'm 53. I got a nine-year-old. I got six. He got four.

I'll be 46 in a couple weeks. I got a two-year-old, a five-year-old a nine-year-old. That worked too, yeah. Okay. Because I got six, he got four. I'll be 46 in a couple weeks. Wow. My youngest is two. I got a two-year-old, a five-year-old, eight-year-old, and my oldest is 15. Yeah, yeah. So y'all started around when we started. Yeah, I'm 53, and my daughter just turned seven. Okay, okay.

Y'all can have a conversation. Yeah, yeah. Word. You know what I mean? Like those days where they be on go-go, you know what I mean? Like those days where they be on go-go, you know what I mean? And you gotta just ramp your energy up and make it happen, you know what I mean?

That's crazy you say that. My homeboy told me that a long time ago, cause you know all my homeboys had kids way younger than I did. And he was like, man, you gonna wait till you 30 plus 40 to have kids? You gonna be running around, your knees gonna be hurting? I'm like, no it won't.

You gotta stay off it. Exactly, exactly. But doesn't a good come with that you being older so yeah you know being a father and not being 21 having growth yourself that you have to go through oh yeah my last my two youngest get a version of me that did not exist right 10 years ago right you know yeah I spent more of my adult life in long-term relationships more years of my adult life in long-term relationships than not and my wife and i

have been together eight and a half years and not more than two days go by that i don't give thanks to the universe for giving me the wisdom and fortitude to have waited as long as they did a lot of people like he's never gonna get married and i think at some point i probably thought like we used to have these conversations like yo they looking at us like we you know damaged goods like what do you mean you're 39 you don't got no kids you're not married nah you got a problem yeah i mean it's the best thing i know for me it's the best thing i could have yeah i would not have i definitely would not have been as effective a husband and father had i done this any earlier with anybody else

that is such a great conversation you never hear men have like that's a conversation you always hear you know women have but so so you actually waited like you were actually waiting for the right you How many bullets? I've done some, brother. I've been doing this since 13. On TV since 13. You know, I knee-o'd my way out of a lot. A lot of shots. But your circumstance was different, though, because you didn't know if people wanted to be with you or they wanted to be with Theo.

No, you know what? I mean, there was that. Because I've been doing it for so long, I've been really blessed with a great sense of discernment. So that was never my issue. To be completely transparent, my thing about marriage was like, yo, I'm not getting married and then giving a chick half of my stuff because I messed up.

So I was very clear that even though there were situations that, you know, were really pressuring, if you will, you know, like that kind of marriage, I was like, nah, because I knew me. I knew that I wasn't going to, I wasn't giving half of my trap because I messed up. How about you, Wee? It was about just being patient like i i know me and i know that like not everybody's gonna be able to deal with me as a community organizer who

like really understands that the people around me that are close to me are gonna be okay my work in life is to make sure that other people are gonna be okay so sometimes i'm i'm a little hard on the people that are close, right? I'm going to get out, and they're going to have to take a back seat sometimes, right? That was part of it. And a big part of it was raising my child. The idea of me getting married and having a child, you got to be special. Man, word, word.

You got to be special. So I love you, Shelly. Yeah, we have one show where we have these two and lamar rucker and i just sit back and i listen that's like there gonna be some people that are taking notes some women that are taking notes because they really i was like this is some good like you said i don't hear that a lot not for men just talking about fatherhood and just the humility and how proud they are and then all the rules and lessons that they learned along the way while they were dating oh boy yeah it really was a note-taking

moment it was good you guys have boys or girls girls oh yeah yeah girl what y'all said that was kind of suspect girls it's different it's different it's way different. I got four. You've got four girls? I got four girls. It's lovely, isn't it? I love it. Yeah, yeah. I love it and I deserve it. That's adult, you know, they say. All of it. All sides.

All of it, yeah. How does that change you having girls? I got four girls. Charlamagne has four girls. How does that change you as a father? I got two boys too, though, but them girls change you. So I asked the universe for a girl first so even before even before conception we were very clear we were having a girl and i knew that i needed a girl

first to kind of ease me into it because i you know i'm i have a pretty good idea of what kind of father i would be so i needed a girl to kind of you you know, slow me down and warm, soften me up, if you will. So for me, raising my daughter, I came into fatherhood already with a certain maturity and certain understanding of male-female dynamics. And with a girl, all of that starts with the father. So I've always, since she came, since I literally pulled her out of my wife, I've been focused on instilling in her the kind of love that she is not going to have to go out in the world and try to find. Treating her

with a level of respect at nine months old that she will that kind of love is normalized. That's always been my biggest thing. Like, you see these girls out here who don't have great relationships with the fathers.

And, you know, through our lifetimes, we've been with a lot of them, right? So I knew that the, for me, the biggest gift that I can give my daughter is a sense of self. So when she goes out into the world, she is not easily influenced by her surroundings. Amen. Right. So since she was like two years old, you know, someone says to her, oh, you're so pretty. You're so cute. You're so beautiful.

She'll say, thank you. And I'm smart, too. That's how we run it. Like, that's the normalization I want her to have in terms of how she sees herself in character. Absolutely. What you see? Yo, same thing.

Like, you know, it's a humbling space. Giving my daughter like a different kind of vocabulary that's empowering to her. So that when she interacts, she knows she walks and talks from a position of power. Absolutely. Have y'all started with the dance yet? Can you speak to that, Candice?

In cheerleading yet? Hold on, can you speak to that, Candice? Yeah, yeah. I come from a family of three girls. Okay. And my father, I mean, really just the king of all things. They know all about my father.

I told the story already today about my father. You know what I mean? So that is very infused in me. And my mother, too. Don't get me wrong. But since we're talking about fathers, all everything that he poured into me. And, you know, sometimes you're doing something. You're like, oh, that's my dad.

What I did right there. That's my mom. Like you can you know when they poured into it, when you see you doing things that are just like what they did. And you don't even realize it. So you don't even realize what the kids see and don't see but really my parents really allowed me to see all of the right things they really did and parents generally are always right I mean really like it might be 20 years down the line we try and my daughter reminds me that Baba maybe not yeah yeah yeah it it really is powerful to have

a powerful father to have a presence all the time even when they're gone still there i think the funniest thing for girl dads is is is humbling right meaning i was never into cheerleading or dance or any of those sports but now when I take my daughters to dance, I be doing a dance with them. Right. Right. You did. Shoulders back.

Right. And I be doing a dance move. Right. Right. It takes you out of that, that ego place where it's like, nah, I'm a tough dad.

Nah. Right. I'm a softie. Yeah. Yeah. I think when my daughter was born, I found myself like crying all the time. Yeah, yeah.

Just simple shit. That touches me. Like baby feet and baby dimples? That's hilarious. I was like, what is? Oh, they're so cute. Man, opened up a whole other world. It's probably a stupid question way but you i hear poetry you laughing barack are you related to rosa no relation no relation wow no relation okay

yeah because you know a salute to the barack of family yeah that's right i mean all the great things you know and to know the the elder og emaila absolutely no mary yeah now father's day is around the corner do you guys is father's day important to you guys as much and for you is it important as you because for myself i just just want to chill for all this i don't need too much this is a little barbecue the kids around that's all i care about for all this day what is what is it for you guys oh we're gonna start with the girl uh well so my father is passed a couple years ago he died during covid but um you know thank you so much and so but you know my husband so you know i was you know this morning all right we're doing dinner right

we're doing at the house are we doing that we're going out you know it's one of those things where i just like as i tell my husband all the time you know what it's not the it's not the birthdays or the Christmas or the or the the holidays that society has said just be good to me on a regular Tuesday we'll be good but I do remember as my father and he got older it was really important because everybody was all over the place everybody goes in their own lives so it was good to come back and give him that gift of time because at some point you know you don't need socks or clothes or tv or car ties you don't need that what you want is stuff that's really free time respect love your energy your opinion all of that so it's good to come together for all of those things that cost no money, especially as people get older.

My dad wants a scratch-off ticket. Just give me a scratch-off ticket. There you go. But you know what? He really wants to see you when you give it to him. You know what I mean? It's not the ticket. He wants a scratch-off.

Yeah. But if he wins, you got to work that out. You got to work that out. Malcolm, are you afraid of being too honest and too vulnerable on these podcasts because you know in this era people get very loose on these yeah as we've seen yeah if you have a certain image of you you even care about that so it's interesting so you know i've said that in interviews that this is you know the most vulnerable uh and i've always been pretty transparent in my art and my poetry music but I

don't I don't worry about it I got a good taste of it just this week because we had our you know first episode on Monday and we were having conversation about the n-word and I had a you know I made a statement about J Cole it's really interesting how many people were not listening to what I was saying and took my comments as I was hating on J. Cole. So it's things like that. And then the way the Instagram, the Art of Dialogue. And other. Yeah, the way they worded it.

That's the word we in. Right. So it was like, oh, right. This is the reason why I stopped commenting on IG first thing in the morning. Malcolm Jamal Warner says he stopped listening to J. Cole. Yeah. Let's play the clip. Let's insert the clip here so people understand.

What are you talking about? Are you playing it in context? Are you playing it in context? Because I'm sure we don't have the clip up. Do you have the clip? No. So we're in context. Okay.

Okay. Dig it. Dig Okay. Dig it. Dig it. Dig it. So, so many people, you know, they just ignore the fact that I said,

I love J. Cole. And I said that most of my favorite MCs, you know, are guilty of the same thing. We're talking about, you know, perpetuating,

perpetuating anti-black messaging in our black music so that was really my point yeah i don't understand that that's when they lose me how was that anti-black how is the n-word saying you don't like the n-word anti-black messaging isn't the n-word anti-black that's what i'm saying my perspective is um so much of our black music today like you take the dope beats away and you just listen to the lyrics. Lyrically, it's anti-black music. I get what you're saying. You know what I'm saying? And we talk about so much of hip-hop today

that's trash and whatnot. But as I said before, they grew up listening to what we were listening to. So we are complicit in you know the parts of hip-hop today that we don't like because they grew up listening to us listening listening to the content is the same the skill set is just whack that's true right which is what makes it stand out but also they didn't listen to what we were listening to. No, what I'm saying is that they... But I think that we also had a broader... We listened to music when there was more than just hip-hop.

Hip-hop was not the juggernaut of music that it is now, right? Okay. It was R&B. Yeah, like jazz. You know, we was rocking the Salt Hall Notes, you know what I mean? And all these other things. Phil Collins. Right.

You know what I mean? Like 80s, 80s. Yeah. Like we had these, a lot of other influences that I think the youth of today don't necessarily have, aren't necessarily being promoted. In terms of balance. Yeah, in terms of balance, yeah. I get exactly what you're saying because even the other genres now are hip-hop influenced.

Right. I'm saying like, you know, this country's a little bit of hip-hop, you know what I mean? And so much of the hip-hop that gets the shine, you know, it's the anti-black messaging.

But that's... There's very rarely... There are not many hip-hop songs that are speaking love to our people. Most of it is very threatening. But is that the artists or is that the industry? Both.

Okay. And the end result is the same. The psyche on young black boys and girls is the same. But if it's young black boys and girls, that's whether it's the whether but if it's young black boys and girls that's on the parents yeah sure but all parents don't all parents there's a certain luxury that you and i have in terms of the time that we and our wives can spend with our daughters right but everybody everybody all families don't have that. So we're not talking about the psyche of young black kids who have their parents very involved in their lives

and showing them balance. We're talking about the ones who are more easily influenced. But let's hold them accountable and get them to the messages. I like this. There we go. My fault. This is the podcast. This is the podcast.

Would you say J. Cole had the anti-black messaging? No. So for me, because nigga has become the staple in hip hop. It's got to be nigga and bitch. That's why I said in that clip, I think there should be a moratorium on both of those words in hip hop. Because at this point, it's corny. It's lazy. Everybody is using it.

So there are so many brilliant writers and lyricists out there that it's like, come on, let's step our game up. We don't have to keep doing it. If everybody's doing it, then come on, do something different. So my thing with J. Cole, I just got to a point where I got tired of hearing N-word or being called N-word in every hip-hop song I'm listening to. And I mentioned J. Cole because I love J. Cole. And he's such an incredible lyricist that when I hear him just gratuitously use either

of those words, I'm like, ah. I mean, he kind of, you know. I have to tune out yeah doesn't mean doesn't mean I like J Cole or respect his artistry is his pin game any less I just go all right it's not it's not doing it's not bringing you it's not bringing me, it's not feeding me. So what about an album like, and this is an album that I say in the future is going to be two of the most important albums of all time. Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morales, and the Big Step, Jay-Z 444.

The things that they're discussing on this album, black men going to therapy, black men doing right by their women, issues with our father, daddy issues that we face. Right. Like, to me, those themes are bigger than the language that they use. And even you look at somebody like Tupac. To me, Tupac's themes were bigger than the language he was using.

People keep saying that about Tupac. But, like, and I don't want to get into a whole thing about Tupac. But, yeah, I listen to his, I mean, listen to his catalog. There's Dear Mama. Tupac but yeah I listened to his I mean he listened to his catalog there's there's Dear Mama, Brenda's Got a Baby, Keep Your Head Up and then everything else is nah

not everything. There's Changes, there's you got a bunch of but you know what this conversation sounds like it sounds like you know when you're younger and your father say oh you listen to that hippity hoppity rap yeah there's a lot of positivity artists positive artists out there that are spitting right but we were listening to music those same artists had the same problem if you think about talib khalid never got on radio most deaf never got on radio tribe called quest hardly got on radio we talk about a lot of those positive rappers it was the

same thing back then those artists might have a record or two right talib didn't got on radio. We talk about a lot of those positive rappers. It was the same thing back then. Those artists might have a record or two. Taleb didn't get on radio until he did a record to Jay-Z hopped on a single just to get by. That's a positive record though. But it took him a long time to get on record. Most Def and them didn't get really on radio until

Miss Fat Booty. So a lot of those things that we talk about was the same thing common rarely got on radio yeah you know what i mean but it's the same thing it's the same thing what we push like back then who was on radio biggie that's right yeah ti you know those are his name had social records with socially redeeming value but the records on radio were the like my dad used to always try to get me to listen to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. And I would, sort of reluctantly.

But when I heard Biggie say, deep like the mind of Farrakhan, I'm like, oh, that's the brother my daddy's always trying to get me to listen to. So now I really listen. Right. He was speaking to you. Yeah. When I heard Chuck D say, Farrakhan's a prophet. I think you ought to listen to him. Like, oh, let me pay attention. So even with the language of a biggie or whoever,

they can still deliver messaging that makes you get in the right direction. I agree, sure. Like Lauren says, what's the line? Right. So you're ignorant to hear me. I was trying to get him to say it. But also what I have to be mindful of as well is.

Respectability politics. Not even that, because that's a whole other conversation. Okay. Right. But it's more, I realize that it's way more productive across the board and for my my own energy and space is instead of spending time talking about the trash right talking about the things that i don't like and i think we're all guilty of we talk about the the negative but i'm trying to be more mindful like even in my in my conversations about hip-hop be mindful of well instead of talking about the same thing which is the negative let me spend time highlighting what i like or like what i love about hip-hop let's talk about

the freshies and that's not rock right i write hard for moomoo fresh all day um but even just that like yeah thinking about you know norman signes, I finally reposted on Instagram. Like, seeing these cats who I believe really need to have shine, well, instead of complaining that they don't have shine, I got social media. Like, now I can actually, you know, give shine to those. And I've got a following. I've got a voice. You know, I've got integrity, a reputation for integrity going for me so like why not just use that and spend more time you know speaking about the giving love to the

things that yeah make me feel good but I also think I know ocean to write you know cuz I went to Hampton when I used to drive to Hampton I'm listening to Nori cuz it's keeping me up what what what? And I'm thinking I'm the biggest what? I'm the biggest stuff out there. But then when you get a little older, you'll be like, ah, that's a little noise right in the morning. Let me turn on some Mary.

I still like listening to it when I'm working out. I'm from the South. The workout, that's it. I grew up in everything. But I also grew up on Goody Mob. Right, right. I also grew up on OutKast.

And I think, you know, we've got more of a balance, right? As we get older, one, we've been exposed to more music, right? Yeah. So it's a little different now different now you know i mean like they still in the in the throes of what's hot you know i mean the how we access music is different now because they're just like yo you know point and click right and it's not necessarily about what's on the radio it's about what they want to listen to which is and they've got direct access to that

you know candace i want to ask from a woman's perspective. You know what I find interesting, right? You know, we have these conversations, but I will never forget Snoop Dogg and DMX's verses, right? When they did their verses, I think it was during COVID. And I remember thinking, oh, this is going to be the night that, boy, they finally listen to Snoop and DMX, and it's going to be a woke cancel fest on Twitter.

But there was people in the comments, the same people I usually see trying to cancel people, loving it, right? Yeah. So how does that make you feel knowing you came up in that era of the 90s? Is it conflicting?

No, not at all. And I'm right in the middle with them in terms of, number one, the N-word and just this whole idea of music and what it represents because I know know so i love wu-tang and when i listen to them i get like a good energy out not just work out but when something goes wrong sometimes that music allows you to let stuff out that's right you know that you just

couldn't get out in the day when you're with your peers or when you're on the streets you just in the car loud with it um and then i also think it's a it's a how were we brought up and what do we bring to the table so the n-word for example i mean i don't know how you were introduced to it ever but that's shaped probably what the word means to you and same with me probably same too we all have different things that we bring to the table just culturally um and i think that just shifts. And I'm a firm believer in the First Amendment, like all the way, because once you start saying no here and no here, then I'm giving somebody else the authority to say no to me one day too. And I don't want that precedent. I don't want them saying, well, you can't say this and you can't say that just because of the content of it

or the context of it. We don't like it at all. It's like when they try to bring up rap lyrics when they go to jail and court, right? I mean, that doesn't make any sense. We all have the same equal First Amendment rights and you should fight for them and use them equally. Let me ask you a question. Yeah. TikToker yesterday, I seen online,

she said the N-word, right? She got fired from her regular job. Oh, this was the girl who was cooking. That young lady. Yes. And in her comments, she was like- She was also white, by the way white by the way yes but that's that's a critical point but this is where i'm gonna close with she said on her tiktok that she didn't apologize because it was her first right amendment to say what she wanted to say and she shouldn't have got fired what's your thoughts

on somebody like that it is her first right amendment yeah uh but then there's three different rules there's first amendment rules on tikt then there are three different rules. There's First Amendment rules on TikTok. There's First Amendment rules at her work. And then there's her own rules of what she believes about the N-word. And all of them conflicted. And she got exactly what she deserves. She did. And that's what happened. That's why you do have to be careful with it. Right. You can't be on TikTok saying it. I mean, this is a good example. No, no, you can't. So you just have to really understand how to use the First

Amendment too. So for example, if you're the KKK, you can march anywhere in America. You just have to get the permit. You can't walk on your own. You have to follow the rules. She didn't follow the rules. She didn't follow her own HR rules at work. And that was her problem.

That's right. But you have this Kelly Esquire. That's right. She didn't follow her own HR rules at work. And that was her problem. She got what she deserved. That's right. But you're an S. Kelly Esquire. That's right. But you know what? Like you said, it's also where you came from, right? Because New York, the N-word was a sign of endearment. Sure.

What's up, my Nick? What's up, this? It was that. You really didn't hear the extremes of it until I went to Hampton in the South. And you'd be like, oh, no, they're not saying it as K. Right, right, right, right, they're not saying it as hate. Right, right, right, right. And that's my law. Yeah, right, right.

It's different ways. And that's sort of been part of my argument. For a lot of people, it's a term of endearment. Like, it's love. There are more interactions that are using the word that are about love

than there are about disrespect. So, you know, and yes, we know the history of it. We also know that that's mine. You know what I mean? But I also grew up reading stuff. I grew up, you know and yes we know the history of it we also know that that's mine but i also grew up reading stuff like i grew up you know message to the black man by elijah muhammad autobiography of michael max you know a great book called from niggas to god i think every black man in america

should read that yeah so it's always been i've always been conflicted about using the word because i don't use it as a term of endearment. Right. I use it. I use it. When Chris Rock showed me the difference between Indian and black people, I use it for that. Right. Right. There's a, I think last time I was here, I quoted Dr. Daniel Black, and I'm going to quote him again. He says, why should I borrow a word from people who hate me when I'm trying to speak love to my brothers and sisters?

Right. So I go back to Comrade. You know, the term Black Panther Party used. Reggie Mason, you know, brought it back up to me. So I've been on this Comrade campaign. Like, you know, if I'm trying to speak love to my brother or comrade, I get the idea of, you know, the N-word is a term of endearment, but it's a colonizer's word. This whole language is colonized. It's not our language.

English is not our language. Sure, but I'm not going to use it. I'm at the point in my life where I question what's the sense in using a colonizer's word, which was an intentionally derogatory word to describe us, why do I want to borrow that particular word and go through the hoops of, oh, it's positive. So just for me personally, I'm comrade. And I use it in both scenarios. That's my comrade.

Or these comrades. Go, my comrade. Let me these comrades. Let me lean back. Let me lean back. I see what you do now, Gator. Go, let's talk to you like that now. I'll talk to him.

I'll talk to him anytime I want. You also said we sold our culture out. We sold our hip hop. Yeah. And it's industry wise. Watch out. We feel that way. In terms of hip-hop? Yeah. Man. Industry-wise, it's sort of the bigger picture, right? Because they did it to jazz. They co-opted it and used it for their own purposes.

But there wasn't messages in jazz that were going to have an effect on how black people see themselves. Right. I mean, yeah. I mean, we sort ourselves out. But I also feel like from a macro perspective, this is going to be the civil rights movement created a lot of opportunities and it shifted the mentality that made many of us very passive.

I know where you're going. You know? Brother Martin said that, though. Yeah. I feel like I integrated my people into a burning house. Into a burning house, right? Yeah. It was more of a sense of independence.

Right. I get what you're saying. Go deeper. It's okay. We got you. Until you hold yourself back. Right. No argument, no argument.

Man, my godfather gonna call me and be like, uh, young man. I'm like, you know, um, yeah, like, it's, um, it's heavy, it's a lot. And I'm like, ah, you got me in a pinch right now. Damn. I didn't hear what you originally said. You said that we sold ourselves out?

Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. In terms of the music? Well, yeah. I heard that on the podcast. On the podcast, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there was a time,

and hip-hop artists talk about it. When the record labels say to them, this is what you have to rap about. This is what we're paying for you to rap about. Right. So it's, you know, and again, I say in a lot of ways, we are a generation. We are complicit in what we see, the state of hip-hop and the younger generation.

We allowed that to happen. And for the dollar. See, there's Tucker. She was right. I'm going to get a t-shirt that says, Auntie was right. I'm going to get a t-shirt that says Auntie was right. When Snoop was here, this was a few years ago, we had a conversation about that because that's always been on my mind as I got older. Like, damn, see, Dolores Tucker was actually right.

And Snoop said she was, but it was the way she was coming at us. And again, it's back to that First Amendment thing too. You know what I mean? Like it's like back to that first amendment thing too you know i mean like it's a layered conversation um like you can't tell me i can't say like where are you gonna control my tongue like that you know i'm an artist you gotta let me do do what i do and so and selling yourself out means such a different thing years ago than today so you know a lot of it had to do with people not

even being informed right educated on what they could could not do their rights whether it was publishing whether there was first amendment rights whether it was uh uh their right to own a certain right uh you know that they should have owned advances now these days people are smarter so when we say that people sell themselves out, I mean, it's negative. But along the way, you should be selling something, right? You should be, you know, in the marketplace. You should be the monopoly that you want to be in the process. So I'm glad the times have changed, right?

But it's definitely different when we talk about who we are today. We are more informed in terms of and so we're making more decisions which is it which is a good takeaway when we're looking back at what was happening in the 90s some of the times you have to you understand like we had a artist a pity of the day his name is Rob for 90s from Louisiana and he said he signed a deal mm-hmm so he could get out of the hood if he was still there it would be problems for him his family his mother and all that so I had to do the deal to get out.

And I know even with hip-hop back then, a lot of artists did the same. That was their only way out. Their music was great, and they didn't know anything out of that. So people consider that selling their soul, selling themselves out. For them, they look like, look, I'm just trying to get out the hood. That's right. And if they had more information, they would have been better off. That's all.

Yeah, access. Yeah, access. Yeah, access. It's a big deal. I agree. Creating opportunities. I got a couple more questions because I want people to subscribe to the podcast. But when it comes to TV and movies, do you have the same discretion with the N-word and the B-word? Yeah.

I mean, I feel like if it's, you mean in terms of using it or? In terms of my use of it or the industry's use of it? Both. So I think I am I'm against the gratuitous use of the word. So, like, I understand all of the arguments and all of the defending. But I think what's getting lost is I'm referring to the gratuitous use of it. Sure, we can talk all day about there are some circumstances where that word is the only thing that really, you know. So I'm aware of all of that.

But my issue, as I said, is the gratuitous use of it. Because I would imagine, right, that if you get a tight script that takes place in the 1960s, well, that script's going to have the N-word. That's context. Right. So, right, that's different. And that's what we talk about a lot amongst the three of us is that it does have a place. We can't just erase that of history, right?

It has a place. You cannot do certain things without the word coming up. It's just where you place it in your own life, and that's where you place it. Yeah. I can't go do an august wilson play period you don't want to say i'm not gonna use this word yeah so i get all of that i think my issue is along with the i go back to anti-black messaging in our music the gratuitous use of the n-word it's just you know, it's just, for me, I'm just like, you know, enough already.

And again, I say enough already, but then I also go back to, you know, there are so many incredible lyricists who have proven their pin game is top notch. And I go, well, just like elevate the shit. If all these corny motherfuckers are using nigga and bitch in all of their lyrics, then don't elevate the shit if all these corny motherfuckers are using niggas and bitch in all of their lyrics then don't elevate the shit like show them and also when we're in our 40s and 50s still rapping the same shit we were rapping in our 20s it's like that's not even you know like like show me some growth or right like if you're not even giving me any integrity in your art an evolution evolution yeah and growth and i like i just can't and it's not feeding my soul can't do it i guess you i want to ask you one question about respectability

politics because you brought it up the thing about respectability politics what if the person you're respecting is just truly yourself you're just policing yourself this ain't about respecting the white man or the system or trying to make the system comfortable. I'm just respecting myself. Is that still respectability politics? So I bring it up all the time because whenever we're talking about that, people go to, well, it doesn't matter what people think about us. I'm like, I'm not even talking about white people. I'm talking about our own level of self-respect. So that's always, that's always the take that I bring up. But then it goes, it always, the conversation always leads back to claiming respectability. Yeah.

What you think, Hannah? No, agreed. You know, we have this conversation often where, you know, you go out, you're not even worrying about any other race until somebody reminds you. So most of the things you're doing, I'm just doing inside of myself. I'm not really concerned about that. I echo what he says. What did you think, Wayne? side of of myself i'm not really concerned about that i echo what he says immediately i mean those are very specific and nuanced um uh situations it's situational right um i think that we've got

to center ourself first um i think it's time that you know we put black folks at the front and really center how we move and making our movements based around the greater good the respectability politics it happens it's a reality of American culture and

some people choose to engage and some people don't you don't seem like the type that's going to ever engage with I love my people I love my people no well the podcast

Not All Hood is streaming everywhere and we appreciate you guys for joining us thank you so much Malcolm Jamal Warner Way You See Baraka and Candace Kelly Not All Hood is streaming everywhere. That's right. And we appreciate you guys for joining us. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Malcolm Jamal Warner, Way You See, Baraka, and Candace Kelly,

thank you guys so much. Thank you. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club.