The New Yorker Radio Hour - “Fire in Little Africa,” A Rap Album about a Historical Tragedy

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

The Tulsa massacre of 1921 was a coördinated assault on and destruction of the thriving Black community known as Greenwood, Black Wall Street, or Little Africa. Even today, the death toll remains unknown. In fact, for generations, most people—including many Tulsans—did not know about the massacre at all. This year marks its hundredth anniversary, and it is being commemorated with documentaries, official events in Tulsa, and one very unusual rap album: “Fire in Little Africa,” which comes out in May on Motown Records. It features about forty rappers, and thirty other singers, musicians, and producers who tell the story of Greenwood at its height—and of their dreams of a revitalized Black Tulsa. The freelance producer Taylor Hosking explains the creation of the album to The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This episode of our podcast contains explicit language. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm Vincent Cunningham. I'm a staff writer at the New Yorker. In two weeks, one of the most unusual rap albums I've heard about in years comes out. About 40 different rappers and then another 30 singers, poets, and producers recorded the album together in the home of a former member of the KKK in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The album is a concept album about a long-forgotten piece of American history

from a hundred years ago that we all need to know more about. One of the artists and sort of the linchpin of the project is a rapper named Steph Simon. I heard about him from Taylor Hoskin, a journalist who covers music and culture. Steph Simon has been on a mission to convince the nation that we should all be paying more attention to the rap scene in Tulsa. So Taylor, what's Steph like?

So Steph is 33. Is it good, is a good, uh, vocal? Is the vocal good? He wears these wide-brimmed hats and, um, these like suede jackets with all this fringe going on. Okay. He wears a lot of like crystals. That's what, that's what this city is. We some stones rocking astrology people.

Be some energy free. You know what I'm saying? So he started getting into rap just casually in high school with his friends in the early 2000s. My friends had a studio and I would leave football practice to record with him and I would just record them. I was trying to be like a manager. So they're having a lot of fun recording together just, you know, Silly, carefree, young days. And then his mom dies unexpectedly.

I'm a mama's boy. I didn't know how to grocery shop. I didn't know how to wash clothes. I didn't know how to pay bills. My car was in her name. I always knew if I got in a bond, I could call my mom's. And that was pretty much me. When my mom passed at 20, I used to, like, lock myself in knees away from

everybody asked away from the world, places, basements and garages, and I would just hide out from every secluded area that I could find in the city and I just sit there and write, right, right, right, right, right, right, just to keep my mind off of it. So it sounds like it turns from fun to a kind of serious art right at that time. Yeah, totally. But unfortunately, trying to be a rapper while staying in Tulsa was just unheard of. It was kind of conventional wisdom that you had to leave and go be where the industry is. It was like, how the fuck am I supposed to make it and rap in Oklahoma?

And people from outside the cities will tell us, like, don't say you from here. Don't nobody want to hear nobody from here. You know what I'm saying? Then in 2010, he's just kind of hanging out at his house. I'm in my apartment. Can I say I was smoking? Yeah. Can we do that on this?

I'm just high. Just having a me day. Just a self-care me day. I'm watching YouTube. And what was hot in the streets at the time, and hip-hop was 50-cent. And the game was going at each other. Game was like, man, I ain't G-Unit no more.

I'm starting my own record label. It's Black Wall Street Records. And one of his homies was just screaming, Black Wall Street. It's Black Wall Street. We ain't fucking with G on it, blah, blah, blah. So while I'm watching these videos, I see on the related search section to the right,

Tulsa Rice Riot, Little Africa, documentary, 1921, Greenwood, all these documentaries. And I'm just like, Tulsa, so I click it. At the turn of the 20th century, Tulsa, Oklahoma, had the richest per capita wealth of any place on earth. It was dubbed the oil capital of the world, the magic city, and the city of dreams. Black Wall Street was the wealthiest African-American community in the country in the early 1900s. They had planes, trains, pool halls, hotels, motels, jazz places, you name it.

It became wealthy because during segregation, people had no choice but to spend their money in the community. And it was the kind of place where if you showed up and you needed help to build yourself a house and didn't have much money, people in the neighborhood would help you build that house that you could go on to raise generations of kids in. Right before dawn, as many as 10,000 whites descended upon Black Tulsa. Opening fire, opening fire, there was a block-by-block battle throughout the black community.

They would force the occupants of a house out. If people resisted, they were murdered on the spot. The homes were looted, and then they were... set fire to. The entire 35 square block neighborhood, which is also known as Greenwood, was physically leveled to the ground in this deadly massacre. After a group of armed black men tried to prevent one of their own from being lynched essentially. I was so mad. Like, why has nobody told me this? I'm 22, 23 years old. And I don't know why I never got this information when I grew up on these streets that they talk about.

And that's unfortunately really common for Tulsans. Even the city's current mayor didn't know about this history until he was 23 either. I hated that. I hate that we didn't know that. I think it would have helped a lot of us, like mentally, if we knew. Like, even if you grow up in wealth, you walk different. Like, you talk different as a kid. Like, you carry yourself, like, you're getting ready to take on the family legacy.

but us we felt like we didn't have nothing. Here in Tulsa, a tale of two cities. About half of the city's black population lives in North Tulsa. South Tulsa is more than 70% white and has twice the median household income. Studies show that residents in wealthier South Tulsa are expected to live 11 years longer than those in North Tulsa. Once I found out about the Black Wall Street situation,

My lyrics got very home bass Like, it went from Tulsa down to the city We built a committee You know We're killing beats by the plenty Like we some young biggies Treat your mind like a shovel With you not dick, you don't dig me

Bubbling like soap and water It went from never talking about Tulsa And trying to sound like I was from L.A. Or whatever To being strictly like Y'all gonna get Tulsa when y'all hear me because we got something that y'all need to know where we're from. That's when everything started to know where we're from.

New York. Under the streetlights, riding through the city. I ain't got no destination, but I got my dreams with me. That's when everything started to make sense. I knew I wanted to be one of those homegrown, hometown hero artists. Like, where you from again? New York. So, Jay-Z, Biggie, Fabulous.

These are all people that represent where they're from very well. You're like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I wanted to be one of them. of those artists also. Yeah. It's funny he mentioned this trope, which is so true, the hometown hero in rap, right? There's certain people that's like they represent that place and that on some level, there's no way to fake that, right?

You can present, you know, here's this region to the rest of the world, but unless you're also connected to that desire of the people back home, it doesn't work. You have to have both ends of it. Yeah, that you have to really have this community swelling and, lifting you up, definitely. But he's like, by now he's like he's got albums out that he's selling locally. People know him locally at this point.

There are people that are fans of his, or is he just like kind of in the wilderness? At this point, he's still kind of in the wilderness, discovering his sound. He's hitting the streets with his homemade CDs. Getting in trouble for loitering, trying to sell CDs

in corner stores, getting kicked out of corner stores. But that was ultimately really great for him because he'd bumped into other rappers who were also pushing their CDs, and they were able to carve out a little home for themselves at this dive bar called The Sound Pony, which used to be a white punk rock, heavy metal place. When somebody's performing, they're kind of in the middle of this circle

with all their friends jumping around them, mosh pitting. They really created this platform where they were the center of the world in that one little slice of the city. staff applies for these major music festivals. South by Southwest and A3C. But it keeps getting rejected. Denied, denied. No, no stuff here.

And I was like, I'm going to make my own festival. Like, I don't got to go to South by Southwest. I can do that right here where we're at. We got a dope street, main street, where we're rapping at. I'm going to get all these venues. I'm going to call it a festival and I'm organized it. I'm gonna throw a show. He's never thrown a festival before, and he decides it's going to be called World Culture Music Festival because he's thinking big.

He's like, I'm going to take on South by Southwest, you know. Like, it's on. I went to Sound Pony. I'm like, hey, can I book a show on this date? And they're like, yeah, that's cool. So I went next door to the next door venue. And I was like, hey, can I book a show on this day? And I was like, yeah, that's cool.

And I was like, well, can I use the patio stage and the stage inside? And they're like, yeah, like, you're trying to do like two shows. I'm like, yeah, like a show out here and a show in here. So he basically cooks up a plan to get a bunch of musicians to come to this thing. I didn't tell the venues that I booked shows all on the same day because I didn't want anyone to second guess it. And then April 1st, I just, I dropped this big ass flyer

and it's like World Country Music Festival and it's like 40 names on it. It's like three venues. So the day comes and I'm just sitting there and by 1030 you can't walk down there.

It's just like and I'm like what have I done? I'm like what did I do? Oh my God. I'm so used to crowds getting like that is a fight or a shootout. And so I'm starting getting paranoid because I'm like,

I didn't do any insurance or nothing. Like, I just did this on some, like, you know what I'm saying? Please, I hope nothing happens. And it's just getting more people and more people by 12 o'clock. I'm getting dizzy because, like, the rooms are spinning. After the night was over, the bars was like, hey man, let's do this again next year. Same day.

And it turned in the five days long. Yeah, it turned in the whole week. I mean, that's like this kind of sneak music festival. And the fact it got so crazy that he was worried that something might happen shows that he had identified something. There was a hunger for something that he had tapped into. Yeah, definitely. that this was a city that had no hip-hop scene to that extent before and that he's able to show that Oklahoma is here.

Right, right, right. You bet the whole Steph don't beat me to the punch. How you're going to steal, then, try to stun. My city was burning. They was eating brunch. I'm plotting up this runs. But remember, Steph's ambition is to be a hometown hero rapper. And like you said, that's not just about getting his music, his friends' music heard in other places.

it's also that you have to really be about the issues going on in the city. And because of Black Lives Matter, people start to pay more attention to the history of racism in the city. And then a particular fight starts to emerge in Tulsa. The street is named after Tolson, Tate Brady, who was a prominent business. In 2011, an article came out about a Tulsa City founder named Tate Brady, who is basically like the Rockefeller of Tulsa. money guy. This big businessman who built up the city and the article exposes that he was basically a white supremacist. Surprise, surprise. He was secretly a KKK member. He was Oklahoma president of sons of Confederate veterans. Kate Brady was a prominent businessman in the early

1900s. And then in 1920, Brady builds a mansion house modeled after Robert E. Lees right up against the thriving part of Black Tulsa that's basically outshining Brady's white downtown district at this point. Like, if you spend money on a mansion on a hill that is overlooking these black people who are like flying planes in your face and you're a KKK member, like, and you're also somebody who crafted this city, you're envisioning them not being there for long. The article kicks up this like big debate over whether to rename a prominent street named after him. But there are concerns he has ties to the KKK and the Tulsa Race riots of 1921, which is why many are in favor of a name change.

His descendants are defending him in the local newspapers. And he becomes this fresh new symbol of the white supremacist Tulsaulson that has been allowed to stay around unchecked for a century. The council vote was split down the middle, four to four. So Steph decides to jump into the fray. He writes an album about Black Wall Street. And at the same time, HBO has a show in production that will introduce many people, including me, to this history for the first time, Watchmen.

And all of a sudden, this event that even many people in Tulsa didn't know about is suddenly on the minds of people all across the country. That's Taylor Hosking. Our story about Steph Simon, and the history of the Tulsa Massacre continues in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I feel like a mastermind of the half tell me stay humble. Really, I'll be trying.

Really, I'm just tired eating TV dinner, so I had to go and shift the paradigm. Really, I'm just had to break the cycle down. Rich Blacks, Rich Black, Solid Rap, Rich Black. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. and we're hearing the story of fire in Little Africa. It's a concept album about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. That attack was the coordinated assault and destruction

of an entire neighborhood that was known as Black Wall Street. The death toll remains unknown even today. But the massacre stands out as perhaps the worst single incident of violence in the terrible history of Jim Crow. And it's being commemorated this year, the 100th anniversary with documentaries, official events in Tulsa, and one very unusual rap album, which was organized or convened by a Tulsa rapper named Steph Simon.

Taylor Hosking tells the story with the New Yorker's Vincent Cunningham. So Taylor, when we left off, you said Steph starts rapping about Black Wall Street, right? So Steph creates an album called Born on Black Wall Street that can sort of serve as his personal story of what it means to grow up in the aftermath of this. massacre, and he decides he wants to shoot the cover for this album in front of this evil guy, Tate Brady's old mansion house. I knew it was Tate Brady's mansion. I knew the history behind it, but I wasn't like being superwalk on the issue.

I'm just like, yeah, I'm about to stand that front of this mansion. Like, yeah, I'm black and I'm proud. This mansion is modeled after Robert E. Lee's home. It's a very southern antebellum-style house with, like, the big tall stone columns on the porch and the big, like, sprawling balconies. So he just pulls up one day unannounced, and he's like, I'm just going to get these shots up. Let's rock. Is he dressed like you told me, like a sort of new-age cowboy? Yeah.

He has the wide-brimmed hat going on. He brings his little daughter. And this car on the road starts to slow down as he's taking shots. Oh, my God. This, yeah. And somebody slams on the brake and rolls down the window. And then he just hears, Steph, what you doing, man? Like, what's up with you?

You scared the shit out of me. Excuse me, you just scared me really bad. Okay, it's his friend. Yeah. Ends up. I thought this was about to turn into a movie of Southern Gothic horror or something. I know. Right. Well, stay tuned.

So it ends up being this guy, Felix Jones, who was in the NFL for a time and out of Tulsa for a while. He retired, and I probably haven't seen him for a long time. He pulled up. He's like, man, what's you doing? And I'm like, man, I'm shooting the album cover. You know what I'm saying? In front of Brady Mansion. So it turns out that Steph's long-lost friend, Felix, just how. happen to buy the Brady Mansion.

You want to go inside? And I'm like, hell yeah. Like, it's you? Yeah. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, that's a version of like, this, you. Yeah, yeah. He's like, no, this is my house now.

Let me show you around. So the two of them start, you know, going all through the house. We go in. They see what used to be the maids quarters. And we've shown us everything. The balcony where. Tate Brady would have been able to see the Black Wall Street community, the kitchen, where he eventually ended up killing himself. Kitchen, we go in the kitchen. I'm like, this is creepy. We go in the basement. I'm like, ooh, we go upstairs where he kept his workers and stuff. It's like, ah, ha, ha.

This place sounds so haunted. Exactly. This is a, yeah, any, sorry. Yeah, and so. I would not spend a single night in this place. I know, right? Steph's like, listen, man, let's turn this place into the heart of our hip-hop scene. And Felix is all for it.

He was like, man, I want to start a record label with you. Like, let's put a stage in here, let's throw a show, let's set up some recording studios. And let's do it. So you're right, they staged the whole house down, get some smudged sticks. We're just trying to get all of spirits up out of this thing that we can. and push positivity out of it this time. And we ain't coming to riot or march. We want results.

We come in to take your pockets apart. Taking control of the art. Taking control of the block. The benefit we're going to reap as long as you play your part. Be no, be no. Be no lane. Be no. This is happening in 2018.

And then in 2019, that show that had been in the works at HBO comes out, Watchman. It's set in Tulsa and paints Tulsa as a key place for a story about race in America. The show is a huge hit, and suddenly all eyes are on Tulsa. So off kind of in the horizon is the fact that the 100th anniversary of the massacre is coming up this year in 2021. And there are rumors of Oprah coming to town, John Legend, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, all these celebrities that are interested in telling Black Wall Street story. And I was like, man, if they're interested, if they're interested in here, somebody's going to shoot a movie.

on this, you know what I'm saying? And then I was like, hey, I want to hurry up and get my album ready so it can be the soundtrack when the movie does come out. And the city's feeling the pressure to look good in the national spotlight. So they start throwing money toward their own commemoration events that can facilitate tourism and make it seem like they want to restore Black Wall Street's legacy. But the city's actually been giving away prime Black Wall Street land to white developers in recent years and overlooking black entrepreneurs that want that land. Like, if ever there was a time that Steph could get the entire nation to pay attention to Tulsa and its rap scene, that is now. And that's when Steph's friend, Stevie Johnson, comes to him

with an idea. Yeah, you tell me. Stevie's an interesting dude with a PhD working for this big money nonprofit, but he's also really embedded himself in the rap. community. And of course, because this is Tulsa, Stevie's idea came to him in a dream. It was so clear, like, very vivid, and I just started getting on my laptop and started writing. Stevie's like, look, let's call on every talented rapper we've ever met in this city, in cities across Oklahoma, bring everyone together to tape Brady's Mansion to record a mega album together. And it's got to be everyone, not just stuff, because, that's really what Black Wall Street was all about, coming up together.

It just goes back to like the blueprint we already had. We got to move different. We got to talk different. We have to think different and let people know. Like community really is the true essence of like becoming free. So Steph, Stevie, and their artist friends decide to go all in on this project, which is called Fire in Little Africa. And if it works, then the whole nation,

could hear about the Tulsa rap scene. I get an email inviting me to come out and hang out with Steph, Stevie, and their whole friend group while they're recording this album in Brady's former Mansion House. So I pull up to the house and it's this beautiful spring day. I'm like, this is incredible. Everyone's kind of like gathering, laughing, smoking, hanging out. these truckloads of equipment are pulling up to the house. There's like six different recording studios set up all around the house.

There was a chicken wing food truck outside T&T Wangs that has menu items named after rappers in their scene. There was this legal marijuana business tabling in the living room with like the most official career fair ready setup. And the artists who weren't performing were making, documentaries about themselves that could easily end up on a big streamer one day, just like this mentality of if you build it, they will come, you know? I thought I was coming to cover a community that I'm not a part of, but as a black person, the walls just kind of started falling down in a way. I was circling up with people to focus group our creative ideas. I was giving out my Instagram, all these things that you're not supposed to do when you're there.

as a journalist. It was this feeling of coming home to a place that I never knew was a home of mine. It felt like home because I was realizing a lot of the communities I'm a part of in New York, spaces where I get to be around folks with similar backgrounds like queer black creatives, those communities are mostly full of people focused on their own careers. There are people who want to be with their own, be celebrated by their own, But they're also not always willing to sacrifice their time, resources, or clout for others. I was seeing how you can think bigger and feel lighter when you're surrounded by people who don't just want to like your photos of winning, but actually want to help you win because they see your fates as intertwined. The same way you feel when you get back home is the same way they're going to feel when they hear it.

I want to go back to toss them. they're going to get the audio version we're going to paint that picture for them I think hip hop is going to respect it I think hip hop is going to see what we're doing the flavor that we bring and then be like yeah like I fuck with Tulsa they're like a fresh pair of penny loafers

with the polish on it tell them keep on shine like a diamond on your pinky when you're sipping pinno greasy tell them keep on shining yeah they recorded 140 songs that weekend, 20 or so will be on fire in Little Africa, which comes out in two weeks. And drum roll.

The album was recently picked up by Motown Records. That's amazing. Yeah. So Black Wall Street might not be a physical location anymore. It might not be as big and glamorous and mind-boggling as it was. once was, but it's in the person who sold 10 t-shirts at a market. It's in the person who left their pickup basketball game early to write their business plan for a new startup idea or write a pitch for a book about their life. All of that's really incubating at this mansion that once

overlooked Black Wall Street and was owned by a Klansman and that staff had the vision to turn into a real home for his community. Fire in Little Africa, about the 1921 Tulsa attack is out later this month. Taylor Hosking is a freelance writer and a podcast producer. I'm David Remnick and that's our program for this week. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you'll join us next time. to walk up out these ashes and shine.

We shun it. The Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo,

Riannon-Corby, Cala, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, Annabelle Bacon, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Meng Fei Chen and Emily Mann. And we had additional help from Harrison Keith Lyme.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.