0:02

This is the Black Information Network Daily podcast,

0:05

and I am your host Ramsey's job, and

0:07

sometimes the amount of stories that make their way to us

0:10

means that we simply can't cover everything that comes

0:12

our way. But from time to time, the story

0:14

just stays with me and fill compelled to share it

0:16

with you and give you my thoughts.

0:19

And now one more thing. At

0:23

the end of the.

0:23

Day, when I listen to her and when it comes out

0:25

and I see the talk that I'm sitting right in my spirit

0:28

and trying to find a little angle and down play his

0:30

greatness, I want to say, right now tonight, how many people

0:32

think Kendrick Lamar is one of the creators that that looks

0:34

something spring Billy?

0:35

Y'all love Kendrick Lamar corrects,

0:38

Do I So?

0:38

I just want to be to be like that was the latest

0:41

movie. And then it made me feel like ten years ago

0:43

when I was moving here correctly and I prayed

0:45

that God will line me back up on my purpose

0:47

and on my path.

0:48

You know what I mean, I'm braided up. Kendrick really didn't feel

0:50

no way. And if he did, take

0:52

your best shout and take that to the chick. Do what you do

0:54

this love?

0:55

You know, I pray that y'all ill like forgive the this step

0:58

and then I can get back to my true path. Was like a

1:00

lot of y'all past two days felt and

1:02

let me know how good I've been sleeping for the past ten

1:04

years. So all of that to say, man, that's a

1:06

reminder to me of getting back on

1:08

the right.

1:09

Path and getting in tune with God I want to get.

1:12

So that is

1:15

the voice of J Cole. And

1:18

if you are a fan of hip hop music, you

1:21

might be familiar with the

1:23

back and forth that has taken place,

1:25

I guess, starting with a

1:28

song called First

1:30

Person Shooter with J

1:33

Cole collaborating with Drake shouting

1:35

out Kendrick Lamar who wasn't on the song, and

1:40

Kendrick had a response

1:42

track on a

1:45

recent Future record and kendrickt

1:50

Drake and J Cole And

1:55

this is kind of right up our alley today.

1:57

I'm joined by Qboard, the one person who

2:00

was more qualified to have this conversation with me

2:02

than anyone else because this is what we do. And

2:06

we're going to talk about beef

2:09

in hip hop and J

2:12

Cole's apology to

2:15

Kendrick Lamar, which you heard now

2:17

for those that don't know Again, Kendrick made

2:19

the song with Future

2:22

dissing Drake and j Cole, and

2:25

then Ja Cole made a response to

2:28

that song and he was basically calling into

2:30

question Kendrick's catalog and you

2:34

know, just just bickering. There

2:36

wasn't there was no real substance to this beef. It was

2:38

just some bickering. I suspect, I'll

2:40

say this up. I suspect it might be staged

2:42

because there's really no nothing there but beef.

2:46

In hip hop, we

2:49

often have

2:52

to

2:55

to deal with that. And you

2:57

know, once upon a time when

2:59

Llo Cool Jay and Cannabis were going back

3:01

and forth, I thought it was so cool

3:04

that, you know, these people could be so creative and

3:06

making fun of each other. And

3:09

then I realized what the implications

3:11

were. And

3:14

you know, I think someone someone said it

3:16

recently, but you know, for every one rapper

3:20

that is successful, there are sixteen

3:22

families, black families that depend on

3:25

that rapper's success. And

3:29

I think even before we get to that point, before

3:32

we talk about economics, I

3:35

more than ever in this part of my life, am

3:37

a fan of black unity. If

3:40

we have issues with other black

3:42

people, we like to handle them gracefully

3:45

if the cameras are on, and

3:48

if the cameras are not and we're behind the scenes,

3:50

then we handle them

3:55

with words, not with violence, not with

3:57

any of the more low vibrational responses.

4:01

And the reason we wanted to

4:03

make the show today is because I

4:07

felt like J Cole's

4:09

apology, we're making a dis

4:11

track that was appropriate given you

4:14

know, the sequence of events. J Cole's

4:16

apology saying, you know what, I'm I'm

4:18

past that part of my life. I love him,

4:20

y'all love him. Ain't no reason for me to

4:22

make fun of him. If he had to diss me because he needed

4:24

to get that off, cool, if he needs to

4:26

dis me again because I made this response, I got

4:28

my chin out. But the truth is that's not who

4:31

I am right now. I apologize Kendrick him

4:33

saying that was so

4:35

big and so far beyond a

4:38

low vibrational point, so far

4:41

just a basic blood sport

4:44

point in his career that it deserves

4:46

to be saluted. And the fact is, there are a lot of people

4:48

out there who are saying, ah, you know, he punked

4:50

out. I hope Drake doesn't apologize.

4:53

This is what hip hop is all about, you know, blah

4:55

blah blah. It's a battle to blood sport. Everybody wants

4:58

to be number one, go for it.

5:00

And I think that Jay

5:02

Cole is showing us that there's a different way to

5:05

be successful, to walk in your own

5:07

truth, and to do so without destroying

5:11

everything in your path, with indeed building

5:14

and showing people how to build. And Q to

5:17

that responded, well, this conversation needs a little

5:19

bit of nuance, So we thought, why not turn on the cameras

5:21

and have an old school conversation like we used to do on

5:24

Radio Solstice, on Rhyman

5:26

Reason, on any of our old shows, our own radio

5:28

shows that we used to do together. So

5:31

so that's obviously me rolling us into the conversation.

5:34

Go ahead, QE.

5:35

Some I just think there's I

5:37

don't think there's a black and white right

5:39

or wrong and how to respond and instances

5:41

like this, because to

5:44

ignore battle raps place in

5:46

hip hop would be disingenuous.

5:48

From two hip hop DJs, absolutely

5:51

a kind of whack right.

5:53

The entire history of this sport

5:56

of hip hop has been the battle

5:58

component. It kind of started there where

6:00

the MC's would highlight the

6:02

DJs, and the battle was more about how much

6:05

more dope my DJ is than yours, and then it

6:07

transitioned into the MC's having

6:09

those battles themselves. I

6:11

think we got to see so many different variations

6:13

of this, and where j Cole should be

6:15

celebrated is making sure

6:17

this doesn't veer into something where

6:21

I'm giving people the impression that I don't love

6:23

and respect that king over there. I

6:26

think that's what he's trying to avoid, and I think what some

6:28

of the pushback against that is is

6:31

those that I think understand that

6:33

Kendrick respects and loves j Cole too.

6:36

Most of the disc was about Drake. If you break down

6:38

the lyrics and like that, the metro booming

6:40

in Future track that Kendrick kind

6:43

of jumped off the porch on. But even

6:45

then, they're not personal attacks

6:47

in the in the in the disk

6:49

track, you know, there's subliminals

6:51

in undos and ntondrous based

6:54

on titles of songs and albums and kind

6:56

of just saying, yo, I'm the best, come

6:58

at me. And then this is the first time Kendrick

7:01

has done this. The last time he did this

7:03

might have been ten years ago,

7:06

but he called out everybody like

7:08

every active rapper got their

7:10

name everybody on the same song with yeah,

7:13

and no one responded ironically, So

7:17

I think it was kind of just Kendrick

7:20

doing that Kendrick thing again, reasserting

7:22

himself as the greatest.

7:23

He didn't.

7:23

There were no personal dishes at Drake

7:26

or J Cole, and even most of the musical

7:28

references and dises were more aimed

7:30

toward Drake than Cole. The only thing that he said

7:32

in response to J Cole is on

7:34

First Person Shooter, J Cole references

7:37

to them as the Big Three, and Kendrick

7:39

responses not big.

7:40

Meat, which is hard, you know.

7:42

So I think it was the reason why people are

7:44

so disappointed to be frank with you, Rams

7:46

is because J Cole might be the only rapper

7:48

capable of this generation of

7:51

sparring with Kendrick. So that's what people wanted,

7:53

and the response was mad, Like you

7:56

know, if they were tweeting, the response would have been great

7:58

if Kendrick tweeted his stuff

8:01

and then JA Cole tweeted back. Those tweets

8:03

against each other may have been cool, but the songs,

8:06

the song wasn't really awesome, and

8:08

J Cole is so talented, people

8:10

got excited, like, oh man, finally,

8:13

we're about to get this generation's whoever

8:15

versus whoever. But we

8:18

know there's a very very dark

8:21

side to hip hop beef, and

8:23

because we've seen the worst version

8:26

of it play out, I think

8:28

that's where my brother Ramss comes from with Yo.

8:33

Cole's approach on this is

8:35

a far better approach than

8:38

how we've seen some of these things go.

8:41

Right.

8:41

So if I have to pick between what Jake Cole just

8:44

did and what say Pak didn't hit him up,

8:46

I'm gonna pick what Cole did a thousand times out

8:48

of a thousand. So that's where

8:50

I think my brother's coming from. On you

8:52

know, let's veer towards the higher vibration,

8:55

let's lift each other up, less unite. But

8:57

I think what fans understood, and I think what Kendrick.

9:01

And I don't know this.

9:01

I don't know Kendrick, I don't know Cold, but I think Kendrick's

9:04

position was, let's just spark because we both dope.

9:06

I'm gonna say I'm the dope. It's not your turn to say you the

9:08

dopest, not I hate you, not I don't

9:10

like you. Because again, none of the lyrics were

9:13

disrespectful at the people, just

9:15

very very clever, masterful word play

9:17

with regards to the music and things that they said on

9:20

track before.

9:20

So you know what's funny is that

9:25

we are flirting

9:28

with the idea of getting

9:30

back into doing a bona fide radio show

9:33

that obviously it's going to have a social justice

9:35

component into it because that's what we do now. But

9:37

we're really thinking about it. We got the name, we got

9:40

the logo, we got the artwork

9:42

and everything like that, and there's some people talking to us about it, and

9:44

I could hear it now. I'm glad we waited to have this

9:47

conversation with Mike's were on right,

9:51

But yeah, I appreciate

9:55

you providing the

9:57

context for hip

10:02

hop battles and

10:04

their place in the culture.

10:06

It is. It is more of a sport. I mean, two

10:08

country artists don't go

10:11

back and forth saying they're the best to you

10:13

know what, what are picked two artists. They don't go back

10:15

and forth saying I'm the best, at least not

10:17

in a way to where fans are engaged

10:20

trying to go

10:24

Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's wrong about it. But but

10:26

but it wasn't like there was groups

10:28

of fans in the same way. There

10:30

certainly were groups of fans saying this person's best

10:32

approbat but it's

10:34

not in the same way. The vested

10:37

interest was not in the same way by the

10:39

fans, and it

10:41

wasn't like there's points earned

10:44

or deducted for attacks

10:46

on the other one. And I kind of Drake

10:48

and Kindred both referenced Prince and MJ

10:51

in their battle. Oh yeah, that's

10:53

the idea, right they did. Okay, So anyway,

10:57

I appreciate you bringing that up because I think that that's

11:00

important context to have one

11:04

of the things that I

11:06

think has happened since

11:10

you know, I fell in love with

11:12

hip hop and then grew up and was raised by hip

11:14

hop. I'm born in nineteen eighty two and I'm from Compton,

11:17

California, So i have a strong predosition

11:19

predisposition. Sorry to

11:22

supporting Kendrick Lamar, right, I

11:25

just you know, you root for the home team. What are you gonna

11:27

do? Right, But make

11:30

no mistake, I'm a huge fan of Drake. I'm a huge

11:32

fan of j Cole right, And the

11:34

truth is they probably both of them, probably

11:36

got more spins in my real life. But

11:38

if you ask me in front of an audience with a

11:40

microphone, Kendrick. Don't even

11:43

question it, right listen, So Rams

11:45

don't do it for the gram, you do it for Compton. Yeah,

11:47

listen, talk to him, know about me, Let

11:49

him know about me. Q. So since

11:53

I,

11:56

you know, was able to fall in love

11:58

with hip hop, you know, late eighties,

12:00

early nineties, all through

12:02

the nineties, all through the two thousands

12:05

and twenty tens up until today,

12:09

Indeed, hip hop paid all of my bills,

12:11

everything that I own. I raised two

12:14

children off of hip hop. I

12:16

was able to share hip hop

12:18

with audiences around the

12:20

world. You also were

12:22

able to share hip hop with audiences around

12:25

the world. That is a magnificent

12:27

thing to be able to have this fantastic

12:31

culture that we own that is ours.

12:33

We were born into it, feed

12:36

us and pay us to do something that

12:38

we love. Right. So indeed

12:40

we love this culture. Right. But I

12:42

feel personally that I've seen hip hop

12:46

battles and hip hop

12:48

beefs sort of

12:50

the lines sort of get blurred. You know

12:52

when you think of you know, the

12:56

NBA Young Boys, and you think of the Chief

13:00

Heaths, and you think of the you

13:04

know, the Six Nines, and you think of the I

13:07

don't even know I said his name but you give what I'm trying

13:09

to say, right, But you know, you

13:11

think of the Dirks and the you know, you

13:13

know King Vond. You know, I was such a big fan

13:15

of King Von and that was that was rap beef that took

13:18

his life in Houston. If I'm not mistaken, and

13:22

you know that list goes all the way back. You

13:24

mentioned Tupac and Bigie, right, if

13:26

those two people weren't battling

13:29

on records, it wouldn't have become hip hop beef.

13:31

And then we would still have two now

13:33

elder statesmen in you

13:35

know, the hip hop arena.

13:38

And so I feel like maybe

13:40

there's an argument to be made

13:43

that hip hop could survive without

13:45

the battle element. You

13:47

know, you don't necessarily need the battle

13:49

element in order to be

13:53

a true hip hop artist, in the same way you don't need

13:55

to freestyle. Once upon a time, I

13:58

felt because I come from an underground and of

14:00

course my brother is in dilated People's

14:02

for those that are familiar, that is boom Ba Backpacker.

14:05

You know, two mcason and DJ all day

14:08

long, and we passed the mic around back and forth,

14:10

and we created a cipher and we just wrap put

14:12

on a beat. I'll make up the rhyme right now,

14:15

okay, and that

14:17

was part and parcel to what hip hop was.

14:19

You could ask kr us Won that you know,

14:22

it's a Q Tip said it on one

14:24

of his songs. Freestyling is a true MC

14:27

trait and for those that

14:29

can do it, people look at them is great. I

14:31

believe that's kind of what he communicated in the bar

14:35

in his song. And hip

14:37

hop has done fine without

14:39

freestyles, not make

14:41

it up. I mean the still they still have freestyles,

14:43

but a lot of times nowadays, they're written, they're

14:45

written, they prepare it, they go into you know, Sway,

14:48

or they go into wherever they go,

14:50

you know, blue leg heav the Leakers, Yeah, and

14:52

then they recite

14:55

something that they'd written prior

14:57

to that moment exclusively for that

14:59

moment, right. And so the term

15:02

freestyle has kind of evolved.

15:04

But once upon a time you could put on a beat

15:06

and say, make a song about this person in front

15:09

of you go and

15:11

it happens sometimes sometimes, but it's very rare

15:13

thing when we were younger. So so because what

15:16

I say that to say that, because there's so many rappers out

15:18

now that don't do that whatsoever. That's not

15:20

a thing that they do. Once upon

15:22

a time that was part and parcel to an MC

15:25

because remember MC's you got to make it up on the fly,

15:27

right, an MC being

15:30

talented and worthy of, you know, being

15:32

a rapper. So,

15:34

just like hip hop has continued

15:37

without that characteristic,

15:40

that skill, I

15:42

do believe that it could survive

15:45

without the battle element, because

15:47

the battle element, as we've seen so

15:50

many times, has kind of devolved and become

15:53

destructive. And what it does is influences

15:55

Because these people are at the top of the culture,

15:57

it influences the rest of

16:00

the culture below it. And what

16:02

you see is the machismo and

16:05

the aggressive

16:08

sort of nature of the

16:10

kind of back and forth battles filter

16:13

its way throughout the rest of the

16:16

culture. And when you see someone like j

16:18

Cole, as you mentioned, who is more than

16:20

qualified to take on a Kendrick Lamar, more

16:23

than qualified to do it, I will say

16:25

see that entirely upfront,

16:28

then apologizeing and say you know what, well

16:31

what man, I'm walking a path

16:34

here. Who wins

16:36

from this? If you need this

16:38

dog, take it. Here's my chint right here. Take it

16:40

right. That also trickles down and

16:42

it shows the

16:45

rest of us that there are alternative

16:47

ways of dealing with conflicts

16:49

or getting where you want to be.

16:50

Go ahead, I'm glad that someone of

16:52

j Cole's stature did it. There's

16:55

far more people will respect it than think it's corny

16:57

because JA co is just not corny.

16:59

So if that's your position, and then you're the one

17:01

that's whack. Like so, and

17:03

this is why we're talking about it because I

17:05

don't want to say his name, but a very prominent

17:08

DJ with prominent platform was

17:11

very upset did J Cole apologize?

17:12

I get why, though, and this is this is why I want to

17:14

point this out, because like I said, there's two sides of this

17:16

coin, and neither is really wrong. Attacking

17:19

J Cole personally would be whack,

17:22

but being upset that he responded that way isn't.

17:25

And this is the reason why.

17:26

Just if we've seen the demise of some greats

17:28

based on that, we saw Meek

17:31

Mill and Drake go.

17:31

At each other's heads and

17:33

then joined forces and give us a.

17:36

Smash like so, we've

17:38

seen that it can just be on

17:40

wax rat beef and then two

17:42

kings can get on stage, surprisingly because

17:45

people didn't know this was going to happen and

17:47

blow an Arena's head off, because

17:49

man, we didn't see that coming. Man, we Ramison

17:52

Q was almost beefing. But then Civic

17:54

Cipher went live at Madison.

17:56

Square Garden and we started by like people

17:58

would be very excited

18:00

about that.

18:01

But excuse me, it's

18:03

important to point out because it's Kendrick specifically

18:06

the control verse that kind of shook

18:09

hip hop up. Kendrick says

18:11

some things in that verse that make it very clear

18:14

not only do I respect, but I love the

18:17

people whose names I'm saying. Now

18:19

that I got that out the way, and then he goes

18:21

off, right, So it's for

18:24

this specific one why

18:26

people are so disappointed.

18:28

It was because.

18:30

Finally because

18:33

Drake they think is the top dog based

18:35

on Drake's successes,

18:37

but when it comes to who's the best, it's

18:39

Colon Kendrick. That's

18:42

how everyone feels unequivocally.

18:45

So people were excited for the Manny Pacqui

18:47

al Floyd Mayweather fight. They were excited for

18:49

the lennyx Lewis Mike Tyson fight. They were excited

18:51

for that match

18:54

between two Titans that's gonna give us what we

18:56

need. They didn't have any expectations that they would bulge

18:59

negative beyond that, because both

19:01

people have said out loud and this Kendrick

19:04

during a disburse not only

19:07

says I'm usually homeboys with these

19:09

names, but I got love for y'all

19:12

just right now in this moment, I'm Kendrick and y'all

19:14

can't see me. I think that's dope. So

19:17

I think the disappointment was Kendrick

19:19

let off and everybody was like finally

19:23

cold by the beginning. They didn't even expect

19:25

Drake to respond, and I heard the same

19:27

prominent DJ that you're talking about say, I ain't.

19:29

Even checking for Drake. I'm waiting

19:31

for Jermaine because I know what your Maine

19:33

got. Your Maine

19:35

got it.

19:36

And then he did it, and there was some disappointment

19:38

in that, but I think the disappointment in that

19:41

is shown in his apology. It was half hearted

19:43

than I don't want to do this anymo.

19:46

Yeah, I don't want to do this anyway. So I

19:49

tried to come up with something to say and put

19:51

it out because that's kind of what the culture was begging

19:53

me for.

19:54

But I wasn't in it.

19:55

So I can respect both positions,

19:57

like I understand the

19:59

disappoint ointment and those people who are like,

20:01

man, we thought we was about to get

20:05

Michael and Lebron in a real match, not

20:07

just hypothetical. I thought we was about to get the Kobe

20:09

Lebron NBA Finals that never happened.

20:11

We thought we was about to get it, and man, we're not gonna

20:13

get it, darn it. So it's them being selfish.

20:15

I don't even think it's you're not dissing

20:18

cold because I haven't heard anybody say anything

20:20

negative about j Cole, just negative

20:23

because of what he did. So, like I

20:25

said, if your position is that he's corny for doing

20:27

this, then you're whack because what he

20:29

says is authentic and it's real, and that's his spirit

20:31

and he deserves our

20:34

reverence and our respect for the position that he

20:36

took. But I'm not going to pretend that I don't understand

20:38

why so many people are sad. Right,

20:40

they're not expressing it, that's sad, but they're sad. They

20:42

had an expectation that they're about to get something great

20:45

and.

20:45

Dang man, we ain't gonna get it. Yeah.

20:47

Well, I think

20:49

it's important for people to know that

20:52

I am

20:55

Q knows this because Q knows me better than everybody

20:58

put together in the world. I'm

21:01

not really the biggest fan of violence.

21:04

I'm not the biggest fan of like boxing,

21:06

and I don't I'm not a fan of MMA

21:09

fights and all that stuff. It just doesn't do anything

21:11

for me. It feels it makes me

21:13

sad. Well, I'm meant more competition,

21:17

I'm talking about it. Yeah, I'm talking about everything to worry

21:19

or but you know this about me, it just

21:22

like it just kind of bums me out, like why are they fighting?

21:24

You know? It just doesn't It makes my spirit unhappy.

21:28

Now I know I sound soft. I promise, do

21:30

not run a ball. I am not the one, nor

21:32

am I the two not run a ball. But when

21:35

I'm vibrating

21:38

at my normal frequency, I

21:40

just don't enjoy conflict. I enjoy laughing,

21:43

peace, tranquility, the

21:46

laughter of my son's you

21:49

know, you know these sorts

21:51

of things. This is the life that I want to live.

21:53

I don't enjoy pain, suffering,

21:56

brutality, violence, It just doesn't

21:58

do it for me. So you need to know this about

22:00

me, and hopefully that will help

22:02

frame my position

22:05

a little bit better. And if you're not one of those people

22:07

like me, then maybe you do

22:10

like the

22:13

the back and forth. It comes from the bouts. I

22:16

once upon a time like them too, but

22:19

it also came with a degree of like, this

22:22

is I'm a little bit sad. I was really a

22:24

big fan of Cannabis. When

22:26

a Llo cool J dissed him, this is just kind of

22:28

the one that is in my brain. Right.

22:30

I was such a big fan of this guy. He was such a dope

22:33

rapper, right, and

22:35

then Ello cool J came out with a song called

22:38

The Ripper Strikes Back, and the beat

22:41

was so big, and Llo cool J's vocals were so big,

22:43

and he was like, ask Cannabis. He ain't

22:45

understanding this. There's ninety nine percent of his

22:47

fans don't exist, you know, It's like

22:50

just dropping these bars. And I was like, oh,

22:52

it's crazy, right, But there

22:54

was a part of me that kind of mourned, that

22:58

felt kind of sad for cannabis, and

23:01

that part never goes away in

23:03

any battle jay Z and Nas. You

23:06

know, we mentioned some of the other names, some of the

23:08

more recent battles back and forth, and

23:11

I think that to your point, Q, this one

23:14

was shaping up to be one of those epic, once

23:17

in a decade type battles. But

23:21

I think that hip hop can

23:25

mature. It has

23:27

matured beyond a lot of different things, and it

23:29

can mature beyond maybe

23:31

not battling so much good beef and

23:34

if Cole sees it going in a certain way,

23:36

because there's something to be said about,

23:40

you know, beef between this

23:42

rapper and that rapper, or battling between this

23:44

rapper and that rapper translates

23:47

to beef on the ground level

23:50

of people who support this rapper and support

23:52

that rapper. That's certainly true and has

23:54

been true on the West Coast for some time,

23:56

because there's a lot of gangs over there, right, And

23:58

so that the implicationations of

24:01

these back and forth we talked about, you

24:03

know, one rapper that

24:06

filters into sixteen families,

24:08

and those families look to those individuals.

24:11

They're the friends and associates of those families,

24:13

look to the individuals that are connected to the rapper,

24:16

you know what I mean. And so you have these like you're

24:19

talking hundreds of people with a vested interest

24:21

in the success of this one rapper, right,

24:24

they have a fiscal interest in that. And beef

24:28

and battling is

24:32

no matter what destructive, it can

24:35

ultimately become constructive. You mentioned

24:37

Jay Cole and Meek Mill on the stage together, Drake

24:40

and you're right, Drake and Meek Mill sorry,

24:43

on the stage together with It

24:46

was after back to back. What was the name of the song, bad

24:49

Going Bad? Yeah, that was their song.

24:50

We also got jay Z and nas Ye also

24:53

on the same stage, but on the same studio and the

24:55

moment, I think kind of on the same label.

24:57

Yeah, yeah, So these things can

24:59

happen. What the

25:02

way I figure is that you don't

25:04

necessarily need to travel through

25:10

the bad parts to get to the

25:12

good parts, because when it's bad, it can

25:15

be really bad and really permanent. And when it's good,

25:17

it's definitely good. But it doesn't

25:19

bring people back to life. It

25:21

doesn't always revive careers. And

25:27

I think that you

25:29

know, for what j Cole did, him

25:32

saying as much as

25:34

he can see from where he sits. And

25:36

I think, you know, Kudostan for being true

25:39

to himself, like this just doesn't

25:41

feel right to me. You and I know this too.

25:43

You and I know this. You and I

25:45

famously had to

25:47

go on the

25:50

news time and again

25:52

and talk about a rapper and

25:55

at no point did we ever disrespect

25:58

that man. We said wrong is

26:00

wrong and right is right, and

26:02

this is right, and this is what we're going to do, and we're going to stand

26:04

on this principle. You can google the story if you don't

26:06

know it. But and I and

26:08

I and I and I saw you do this on CNN

26:12

on CNN Live. I saw you do

26:14

it with these eyes. I sat next to you, and I watched

26:16

you do it. And you spoke

26:19

firmly, You spoke as

26:21

a man, as a protector, and

26:25

at no point did you disrespect the

26:28

individual that we were talking about. You gave him

26:30

everything that he needed, and you gave him a way back

26:32

home. At some point he's going to find his way,

26:35

but for now we cannot. We cannot

26:37

let him harm us anymore. Right,

26:40

And I think that that's kind of that,

26:44

that's something that is noteworthy,

26:46

that's something that is that is special. And I

26:48

think that not devolving

26:51

into the beef, the back and forth us being

26:53

black man attacking a black man in

26:55

front of the whole country. You know, there's something

26:57

that that they used to talk about,

27:00

let's call it ninety three. I remember it on in Living

27:02

Color, and

27:05

uh in Living Color was a skitch

27:07

show back in the day. For folks that don't remember or

27:09

not open. It was before

27:11

Chappelle's Show and before that's the

27:14

origin of the sketch comedy. Yeah, yeah, it

27:16

was.

27:16

It was.

27:16

Yeah, it was Thik Saturday Night Live. That's probably

27:18

a better way to explain it. But there

27:22

was a skit and it was about black unity and

27:25

it was kind of suggesting that there was no such

27:27

thing as black unity. And it was a funny skit, but

27:29

it stayed with me. I'm glad I saw it. And

27:33

whenever I would see beef between Lloklue

27:35

Jay and Cannabis, or between jay Z and Nas

27:38

or you know, Meek Mill and Drake Oupac

27:43

and Biggie and on and on, right, I

27:46

would always wonder, is

27:49

this an opportunity for

27:51

black unity that has been squandered?

27:55

Right? And black unity is something

27:57

that as we've been taught growing up

28:00

and still sphere into the

28:03

powers that be, the puppet

28:05

masters that control these facets

28:07

of our life that we are trying to change, that we push

28:09

back against. And so I know that

28:11

people who play basketball are

28:13

competitive with each other, and

28:16

they don't it's they don't have to

28:19

to beef, right, and

28:22

they can compete where they can where

28:24

they compete, right, the scoreboard.

28:27

Right, if the rappers like J

28:29

Cole says, Look, I'm in a game. Everybody

28:31

wants to be number one. We'll compete on the scoreboard

28:33

who has the most sales, right, and that's

28:35

that. But I'm not going to disrespect

28:38

this black man, who is a king, who

28:40

is someone that everyone

28:42

looks up to, you know, on and on.

28:45

If that's what he says, I say, it

28:48

has a soft place to land over here.

28:49

Yeah, I just think it's it's important

28:51

to say that you can do both, you can compete without

28:53

disrespecting because again Kendrick doesn't say

28:56

anything disrespectful about either person in

28:58

the song. It's more in window and subliminal

29:01

and on tandra

29:04

with regard to song titles and things

29:06

set in music. Never this guy is

29:08

this and this guy is that, or anything disparaging

29:10

personally.

29:11

About the other guy. I think that's important

29:13

to point out because I don't.

29:14

Think we should just make it one

29:16

or the other when that's not truly what it is.

29:18

Sure already shown that you can do one

29:21

without doing the other. Well, you

29:24

say this in

29:26

you window, smell

29:30

like in you out there? All

29:35

right, that's it for us, that was coming.

29:40

All right, We're showing our age right now, but

29:44

this is the time when we turn it over to you. We really wanted to

29:46

have this conversation for your benefit, but we also

29:48

want to hear from you, So do us a favorite. Reach out to us

29:50

using the red microphone talkback picture on the iHeartRadio

29:52

app, or you can hit me on social media. I am at

29:55

Ramsy's Jah, I

29:57

am q Ward and let's keep

29:59

the com inversation going. Does Bee

30:01

still have a place in hip hop? What do you think? And

30:04

until we talk Peece. This

30:07

has been a production of the Black Information Network.

30:10

Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson. Have

30:12

some thoughts you'd like to share? Use the red microphone

30:14

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you're there, be sure to hit subscribing down all

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30:21

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30:23

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here on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast