The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Simone Amelia Jordan Talks Tell Her Shes Dreamin, Hip-Hop, Iggy Azelia, Israel & Gaza + More

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

The Breakfast Club sits down with Simone Amelia Jordan to discuss her new book "She's Dreamin", Hip-Hop, Iggy Azelia, and Gaza. Listen for more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Lauren LaRose is filling in for Jess. And we've got a special guest in the building. We have Simone Amelia Jordan. Welcome back. Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I haven't been here in eight years. Eight years. Long time.

I did The Breakfast Club's first photo shoot. Do you remember? Yes, yes. One of our, I think that was our first official photo shoot for a big brand. It was for Dr. J's. Dr. J's. Dr. J's, yep. And you dressed as the movie. The movie, The Breakfast Club.

The Breakfast Club. That was a long time ago. What made you feel like we were right for that? Like, what was the vision? For Dr. J's? Well, just in the moment. Oh, you know, well, I remember. What year was that?

2011? When you just started the moment. Oh, you know, well, I remember. When did you do that? 2011? When you just started the show. Yeah, 2011, 2012. 2011. Yep. That's over a decade ago now. Yeah. It was so exciting.

The show was so exciting, and we wanted to work with you guys to model for the website. I mean, you're obviously natural models. And I forget the characters that you took from the movie. I was. You were Judd Nelson. Yep. Yeah. I that you took from the movie. I was... You were Judd Nelson. Yep. I can't remember what it was. I can't remember.

The photos, I was looking for them online, but that was a time when everything wasn't online. So I think they've kind of disappeared into the ether somewhere. But it was a great photo shoot. We had them somewhere, though. I can't remember where. Did they go in the source or something? I think they went somewhere, those photos. I remember. but it was a great photo shoot it was very cute how did you

know early on though that like the show was going to be oh you know what i mean like you came to get them like yeah it was magic i mean they all were such individuals and had their own flavor and brought something special to the mix new york was so excited at the time about the show um so we knew that like we wanted to get involved. And for me as the content director, Dr. J's, it was a no brainer to get the brands that we sold onto these guys. Cause they were about to be everywhere and look at them now. You know, I know.

What is your thought process? What do you think about these sneaker stores now? Because there's so many closing down since you were with Dr. J's. Foot Locker said they're closing a bunch of stores i think foot action athletes foot is up out of here there's so many stores now that are not doing well so what are your thoughts on that well everything's changed right i was at drj's.com kind of at the the height of like the quote unquote urban fashion wave and being a kid from the other side of the world, we used to wear fake versions of the brands because they weren't available in Australia.

And that's why I reached out to Dr. J's in the first place because everyone was rocking fake baby fat and fake apple bottoms. And I was like, no, I think we need to step our game up. So I reached out to Dr. J's to advertise in my magazine that I had in Australia, which was the first on sale hip hop and R&B magazine inspired by the source and inspired by Vibe. And so we developed a relationship that way. Then they hired me to come to New York and work

for them. And I saw the wave of those brands crashing and burning. And now into a point where fashion is, is all over the place, right, in terms of the style that we wear. Anything goes now. There's no – and the style used to reflect the streets, right, and so that has all changed. But it's a tough day. Everything's shutting down, whether it's fashion

or even coming back to New York. You used to be able to grab a bite at any time of the night, but I think it was like after 10 p.m. and the restaurants I used to go to, it all shut down. So I think COVID had a lot to do with that too. How many hats have you worn, Simone? Hip hop journalist, personality, fashion, brand,

photographer. I'm an immigrant. We get the job done, as they say. What can I say? Now an author. Yes. Like you, I'm trying to get on your level um yeah i've always i think i've got undiagnosed adhd as they say uh i've always been driven by hip-hop in everything

that i do which hasn't been easy coming from a country where hip-hop isn't respected that much tell us about that too tell us about growing up in Australia with hip hop. How big was it? Was it easy? It started way before Iggy. Oh, okay. Who's that Iggy's fault? She said she wasn't a part of the problem.

Well, you know, it's funny when I met Iggy, I did Iggy's first on-camera interview for drjays.com and I initially thought, I'm not going to like this girl because she kind of represents

everything that I have fought against my whole career. Yeah. A pretty white girl coming in and, like, I wanted to know how genuine she was and authentic to the roots of the art form and paying respect to its black and brown founders. But I felt very – I've got this, like, mama vibe and I felt very protective over her when I met her.

And then, obviously, her career skyrocketed and we didn't keep in touch. I like Diggy. I was about to say. I didn't like Diggy. I like Diggy. She loved what she did. She loved – and whatever the feedback and response to that was is out of her control, right?

But she genuinely loved what she was doing. So growing up in Australia with hip hop is it's tough. We have our incredible First Nations Aboriginal community who embraced it from very early on. I'm Lebanese background, like a lot of Arab Australians embraced it very early on. But we never got the respect. It was very similar to the States, but our minorities are even smaller. We're like smaller minorities in a majority white country. And so it never got the respect that it deserved. It still doesn't to this day get the respect that it deserves. Even there?

Like they don't have their own scene there? Well, funnily enough, it has a very small scene, but it's run by white people still. And coming back after living in New York for a decade and achieving what I did and ended up at The Source magazine becoming the content director, when I came home, because I got very sick, I got Crohn's disease and got really sick trying to keep up with the Joneses in New York for 10 years.

So I came home and everyone was like, oh, you're going to be the top of it. When you get home, you're going to get every job, you'll be at the radio stations. I still don't get, the doors are still closed to me because the only hip-hop and R&B radio station in Australia has only two live shows and both are hosted by blonde white women. Wow.

Yeah, so then you see it. Are they good? No, that's up to opinion. But I will say, like, you know, not throwing affirmative action or anything like that in the mix. Are they deserving is the question. Are they deserving? Because, like I said, our Aboriginal community,

we have so many talents that really should be. We've got a really multicultural community there that isn't represented in the art form, which is pretty insane. So yeah, I felt more accepted here. I felt more accepted when I got to New York. I was like, these are my people. This is home because I'm a hustler. Obviously, like you said, I've got a million gigs.

And that's what the story of the book is about. It's about like chasing your dreams, even though you get all these doors closed in your face. It's my love letter to this music genre that I think a lot of people forget has changed the world and it's changed the world in so many ways and I've always been very vocal about paying tribute to its black founders and a lot of people don't do that enough I think so that book is the love letter to that in its purest form hip-hop brings people together oh in its purest form it has taught me and so many

other kids around the world to be proud of myself too like i recognized the pro-black consciousness when i was a kid in the late 80s and i'm like their self-empowerment made me feel pride in being Middle Eastern at a time when stereotypes were rampant and I was really being taught by the movies I was watching in the media I was seeing to hate myself and to think of myself in a negative way and I'm like no no no public enemy are telling me fight the power you know so I can't even begin to describe what black people in the united states have done for marginalized kids around the world in terms of our own pride what did your family think about when you when you found out this love for hip-hop because even in

the states here yeah when hip-hop first came around everybody thought it was gonna be fatty they thought it was gonna be quick they thought it was just some hippity hop yeah it caught on so what was your family like my family loved it, I was raised by a single mother. And she, and by my grandmother, too. So very matriarchal family. And my mom loves hip hop. Like, my mom, I think, my mom's a rebel. So she recognized that kind of rebellious fight the power instinct that it has.

And I started rapping at nine. That's the first chapter in the book but I very quickly realized that was not my role and so I think we all started rapping here I think do you think he was yeah I was a rap person just we all dreamed a little dream I think you should I think I should drop a mixtape well that's another thing like women's empowerment has been a really big theme in my career I did an all-female mixtape back around those days, 2011, called Woman on Top with really early verses from Iggy. Rhapsody was on there really early.

I had a Reebok sneaker come out in 2012 where we did this freestyle thing and it's on YouTube and, like, it's a really young Rhapsody and who else was on there? Ty Phoenix, like, all these female rappers. Brianna Perry at the time. Brianna. Yeah. Remember Brianna?

Yeah. And like so many, cause to me, like, and especially championing black women for me was very important to like, I'm very respectful of the culture and I know that I'm a guest in the culture, but I also know that I have something to contribute as an international kind

of representative of it, too. Yeah. What inspired you to go from doing, I guess, hip hop journalism to writing a whole memoir? Well, I've always been very careful about telling the stories that I feel black journalists should tell. So I'm like, I can tell a memoir because it's my story. Right. So I thought that would be a good place to start on a book journey. And I had always thought about writing my memoir, but I thought my story was so singular

and very rare that it might not connect to a lot of people. But as I was writing it, I'm like, oh my God, there are a lot of themes here that especially for young women, I'm talking about like racism, classism, sexism, being groomed as a teenager, because I wanted to be on radio and I wanted to be a journalist so badly, getting taken advantage of by like an older guy in the industry who was dangling carrots. Like these things happen to women in the industry. They're very prevalent. And so as I'm telling this story, I'm like, wait a minute, these themes are going to resonate. So I kept forging ahead. I entered a contest actually during COVID.

It's called the Ritual Prize for Writers. And I thought I'm not going to win this because publishing again, like every other industry in Australia is very white. They're not going to understand the story. But I ended up beating like almost 1,000 entries and I won the Ritual Prize. And then they offered me the book deal, Hachette, Australia. And the book came out in Australia about a year ago

and it's just come out just this week in the States. So I think there's a lot in there for fans of hip hop and people that are living between cultures to relate to. I love the title. You mentioned the grooming. Yeah. When did you realize that that wasn't what was supposed to be happening? Because I think there's that moment where you're like,

this is not, I don't have to do this. Absolutely. I got myself in a very sticky situation as a teenage girl with an older man who I didn't pick up on the signals, and I thought he was just encouraging me to work in radio and train me but I narrowly avoided a very serious situation there I think that's why I was able to write about it in the book there was another situation when I was working at another radio station here in New York and we had Mystical come in and it's funny this is pre-Me Too. So this is a time when, as women in hip-hop,

we had so few opportunities to be on radio, to be the male sidekick. And shout-out to DJ Green Lantern, who I was on the show with him, and he said to me, like, I don't want to talk. He's like, I want to play the music. I'm going to let you host the show. And I was like...

That was a great show, by the way. Oh, Invasion Radio? Yeah, thank you. And you used to put people on the spot. Yeah, it was a great show by the way oh invasion radio yeah thank you and used to put people on the spot and like it was yeah it was a great show thank you and so um we had this situation where you know this guy at that point mystical had had like a rap sheet literally of offenses but in hip-hop in those days we didn't really we knew but we didn't know it was like if you go back to people that were probably in media during the Aaliyah R. Kelly days, they knew but they didn't want to talk about it.

And so he made some very vulgar comments to me when I was just sitting like this at the desk. This is mystical? Yeah, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. But I didn't want to make a scene. I didn't want to be difficult. I didn't want to throw him under the bus anymore. I felt very protective of the talent that I interviewed too.

So you're grappling with all of that. But then when I wrote the book years later and I reflected on it, I thought I'm so proud of the young women today who, for the most part, call things out straight away. And that's because other women have paved the way for that. And I felt in that time I wasn't as vocal about a situation that I should have been. So I think we've come a long way from that.

But these things still happen, right? Women are being more vocal, but it still happens. So I hope through the book, without being preachy, young women can learn some lessons as they move ahead in their careers. Why the title tell her she's dreaming? And then also every chapter has a dream. Yeah. I realized when I was writing the book that dreaming was a very prevalent

theme in my life. Like I even went through my old magazines that I had issues that I had edited and I was speaking in the editor's letter about chasing this dream that felt impossible as a kid from the other side of the world to come to New York and work in hip hop. Yeah, dreams have been really prevalent in my life. My mother was a dreamer, is a dreamer. She wanted to be in the circus, God bless her, her whole life. But my grandmother was very salt of the earth. You know, she raised seven kids on her own basically and worked three jobs. And so I had the really kind of down-to-earthness

of my grandmother mixed with the dreaming of my mom and I think that made me able to achieve those dreams right because you can't have dreams without work ethic and also in Australia there's a very famous movie called The Castle it's a very Australian movie and there's a very um famous Australian saying and it's tell him he's dreaming which is like you know tell him he's dreaming it's very it's very awkward Australian which is like you've you're having yourself on right like you can't be serious it'll never you're bugging that's exactly what it is you're bugging that's right thank you for the translation you're bugging and so um I I female I made it feminine so I I made it tell her she's dreaming.

Because my whole career, I've been told, this will never happen. You know, like, who are you to think that you're going to get there? And I grew up reading The Source, and I ended up being the content director of my favorite magazine ever. So I achieved those dreams, and I'm very proud of that. What's left? What are you still dreaming about? What do you still want to accomplish, if anything at all? I am dreaming of moving into a – I've shifted into more of a mentor role. So that's very important to me, as we can see with the book. My heart is kind of still in New York, which is tough.

You want to come back to New York? I feel like I'm living in two places. I feel like I belong here career-wise, but now I'm married and I have a six-year-old beautiful daughter. Shout out to my beautiful family. I think they're listening online from Sydney. I don't know what time it is right now. And your family's from Australia? No, my husband's from New York, but I met him in Australia. Oh, wow. Yeah, life is crazy. I lived in Harlem for 10 years. He's from Harlem, and I met him when I moved back to Australia. What the hell was he doing in Australia? He had jobs there.

Like he used to play basketball, but he lived in Australia for a long time. He lived there like 15 years when I met him. And so, yeah, life is, you never know what's around the corner. But for me next, I'm kind of open to whatever happens next. Like I'm consulting and mentoring and I'm writing more actually I have an essay coming out soon yeah I'm writing about hip hop in Palestine

yeah I see you talking about that a lot on Instagram yeah I know we talk about it Charlamagne and I which I appreciate how open minded you are about everything and I just want to give you a special shout out on air for even allowing me to come up. Because I disappeared from the scene for so many years.

And, you know, a lot of people forget. People, they leave the messages on read. And you didn't. You always been solid. Yeah, thank you. Like you said, you gave us our first big shoot. And your photo's in the book, man. So, like, yeah.

Your photo's in the book. So, yeah, I'm writing an essay on that. I'm very passionate about hip-hop started as an art form to be the voice of the voiceless, right, the voice of the oppressed. And I feel like there are a number of artists that are speaking out, and you've had them up on this show, but I feel like we could be doing a lot more. And hip-hop's biggest stars are very loudly silent.

So I'm trying to unpack that. That's a conversation we've had a lot up here, that some of the biggest celebrities haven't said anything. Yes. And, you know, for some people, they don't get into politics. They don't know, they don't understand. And what's your thoughts on that? I think art is political.

And I think that when we're watching a live stream genocide, that it's not hard to say I just want innocent people to stop being killed. It's deeper than that but on a very basic level. As an Arab woman I feel like we're not humanized enough and I would like to see my people be humanized and I'm inspired by Nat Turner's rebellionbellion. When I say I learned about black history through hip-hop, I learned about black history. So I think that more people, it wouldn't be happening if more people stood up and said something.

And really they're asking us to use our voices. That's all they're asking for. Please use your platform. Please use your voice. So this essay, it might ruffle a little feathers, but I feel like we get one life on this earth and if i don't use that to kind of um i'm privileged and i feel like i should use that privilege for the greater good what do you think about the language surrounding it right because like you hear politicians they all say the same thing they

acknowledge what happened on october 7th which we all can agree with a travesty. And then they say the hostages have to come home and then it can be a ceasefire. What do you think of that language? I think that we have to acknowledge that before October 7th, there are thousands of Palestinian hostages that are in jail under no charges at all. Men, women and children. Oh, wow. Yes, and that never gets spoken about. I think we have to acknowledge that Gaza has no control by land, air or sea. I think there are many factors that have dehumanised this population for decades

that we're not taking into account prior to that operation on October 7. And so I think when we speak about this issue, and again, I'm not Palestinian. I am Lebanese, and Israel is constantly at war with southern Lebanon too. So I do have a vested interest in this, but it's a it's a human issue and i just think that um if you keep sending bombs to a population um how is it going to stop like i i just think the narrative doesn't make sense and we're being gaslit very much at the moment and i think people need to understand there are a lot of people in pain um right now so what do you think about what the U.S. is doing as far as saying, like Charlamagne said, we want peace, we despise sending millions

and trillions of dollars? Yeah, I think it's – I was really nervous coming back to the States, but it's not just the U.S. Australia is complicit too. Europe is complicit. It's not just the U.S., but the U.S. is funding the arms that are committing a genocide. And so, but I also say on the flip side of that, I have to be really clear. It's happening in Sudan at

the hands of Arabs to black people, right? So it's not just Israel that are committing an atrocity. They have the eyes because as black poet June Jordan said, Palestine is the moral litmus test of the world. And that's why I think our eyes are on it, Palestine is the moral litmus test of the world and that's why I think our eyes are on it. This is the holy land, right? But it is happening in Sudan as well. We all know it's happening in the Congo if you do your research for different. It's supremacy in all its forms.

It's racism in all its forms. And I think that sometimes Charlemagne and I have talked about the lesser of the evils as well and a lot of people are hurting and they don't want to hear that lesser of the evils talk, right? So to me I don't have the answers but I would just like my people to be humanised at the moment so we can take a step back and really look at what's happening because Palestine was a land and it's getting smaller and smaller illegally

more of that land is being taken and so to me that is that is the issue of our time you have a picture here with Khalid had a conversation because I know he's been a big topic of people feel like he should be speaking up more so I'm writing about Khalid in the essay that was a conversation? I'm writing about Khaled in the essay. That was my question. Who exactly are you? I'm writing about Khaled in the essay. I'm writing about a couple others that go to the Middle East to party, make money from other countries in the Middle East,

but when it's time to talk about our pain, radio silence. And I think that that's happened with black people for decades now, right? They want our rhythm and not our blues. That's the saying. And now we're feeling it. And so I acknowledge all that in the essay, right?

And I see black people say to each other, why should we give a damn about them? They've never given a damn about us. And I acknowledge that too. And I think we have to be very honest and have these honest conversations about everything. And we can't move forward until that. But your point yeah um have you spoke uh i have reached out to colored people and we've spoken very briefly i've been told that uh i'll put that in the essay and you can read

about it but no we haven't directly spoken everyone has their own journey i understand that but as a middle eastern person i know our community are heartbroken at his silence. It's going to be interesting to see what happens especially in November with the election, especially in places like Michigan. Because the reality is America is always going to fund the Indian military.

So it's just going to be interesting to see what happens. What do you think will happen in Michigan? I really, truly don't know. i really don't know i really have no idea because even when i think about all the people who voted you know uncommitted in the primary it's a part of me that's like but if if trump gets in it's gonna be worse i don't know what's worse than genocide i do know what's worse and i understand what you're saying because i do understand that there are other there are other issues right lgbtqi rights um abortion like there are huge issues on the table but that's what i mean when i say worse i mean worse for gaza yeah like oh there's no worse for gaza right now they can't really they can't be they can't be

like you said if if what you said is true that america unequivocally stands with israel which is what kamala harris has said unequocally, then how can there be worse? That change of power will be the exact same thing. So it's just done in different ways, probably. So I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not American. I'm married to an American. My daughter is a dual citizen.

And I'm very vested in, I have a, you know, I love this country. It's given me so many opportunities. But like, it does break my heart. The foreign policy of America obviously affects the world. America is still a superpower. I don't know if it always will be. And I don't know if Americans realise the shift in the view of this country globally.

There has been a huge shift. But people always say to me, oh, Americans, they only care about America. They don't care about the rest of the world. And I say, as someone who lived here for a decade, until you live here, you don't understand what they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. You have to give Americans some grace because there's so much

that goes on here that to take on, I mean, I've had conversations with friends, to take on some other tragedy is a lot mentally because dealing with things day to day here is crazy enough. So I get that. But it's good to kind of be aware of what's happening that affects because it's your tax dollars, right? Absolutely.

The last chapter is don't dream it's over. Break that down. Oh, the last chapter, don't dream It's Over. It's basically about, like you said, every chapter has the word dream in it. It's about never giving up. Like I said, my heart is still here in New York. I'm trying to bring New York to Australia in a lot of ways in what I do. And it's easy to say never give up when you feel like the light is never coming into the darkness. I got very sick with the Crohn's disease.

I almost died. When I got home to Australia, my doctor was like, you are literally life or death. You are killing yourself to like survive in the music industry. Yeah. That's how much I wanted to chase this dream and make it real. But then I realized like your dreams can change as you change. And I think that's the lesson of the book like you have these dreams that ignite your fire but as life changes the dreams change too yeah um and you love that your dreams can change your dream

can change as you do yeah yeah and so now I feel like a new burst of energy with the book and you never know like I'm up on the Breakfast Club like it's all come full circle like and I and I met you guys when this was just starting life is crazy and and it's so inspiring how did you deal with because nowadays like people are so like it's our culture yes you can't come in and get all these think pieces on twitter yeah how do you like or did you even deal with that when you were first not in Australia but just here in New York being a hip-hop journalist, but not being of the culture? Right. I didn't really feel that until I got to The Source magazine,

because that's obviously a venerated hip-hop institution. And I had the conversation with the publisher, Londo McMillan, when he hired me, and we spoke about that. And he said, I'm actually hiring you because you are aware of your place and who you are. And he said, some of the staff have said, like, who is this girl? What's her pedigree? We don't know her background.

They didn't know all the years that I put into working within the art form. And so for a little minute I felt some imposter syndrome. But then I realised, look, I've never tried to be anybody but myself and um i've always encouraged like i said like especially young black women like nyla simone was my intern at the source oh wow wow i mean i know she's in terms of you know nylon right now or rhapsody that's that's what i'm saying she's on tour with rhapsody who i put in the freestyle sessions so like i've always known my place and I've always known that um I

really felt like this culture was not and it is not respected on the level that it should be globally and even within the states probably but like especially globally people will go to the concerts they love the music but when it's time to show up at a protest you know they don't want to get their hands dirty and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't let black people give us their gifts and not pay that back in every way. And I've tried to do that. So yeah, things have shifted a little bit.

And I think rightfully so. I think that conversation is very needed. But I have always tried to be as respectful as possible in what I do and just contribute because it's a global art form now. I mean, it was unleashed into the world from the seventies and I'm a child of that. So I think my duty is to learn the culture, learn the roots and just stand as much as I can.

Yeah. All right. Well, from down under to uptown New York City, our music helped one woman make big dreams come true make sure you go

tell her she's dreaming right now thank you guys thank you so much and we appreciate you for joining us thank you Virgo it was my birthday

last week too happy birthday thank you Simone Amelia Jordan it's The Breakfast Club good morning wake that ass up in the morning

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