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HipHopWired sat down and talked with the director and star of the Paramount Plus documentary As We Speak: Rap Music On Trial.
One of the more pressing situations affecting Hip-Hop culture and the communities who love it is the persistent weaponization of rap lyrics in criminal cases throughout the United States and abroad. The most vivid example is the current RICO trial being brought against Young Thug by Fulton County prosecutors in Georgia. Sadly, the general public is still unaware of the scale of these actions by the criminal justice system and its effects – to date, 700 trials have used rap lyrics as evidence since 1990.
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A new documentary, As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial is shining an intense light on how much law enforcement has used rap lyrics to gain convictions in criminal cases. The documentary, which will air on Paramount Plus, is directed and produced by J.M. Harper ((jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma). As We Speak is filmed through the perspective of Kemba, a talented MC from the Bronx who is our narrator as he talks with various artists such as Killer Mike, Mac Phipps, Glasses Malone, and attorneys like MSNBC’s Ari Melber across the U.S. and in the United Kingdom about their perspectives in unique ways – even kicking off the film by acquiring a two-way pager to keep his communication private. HipHopWired got the chance to speak exclusively with Harper and Kemba about the film and its message.
HipHopWired: J.M., what was the artistic spark for doing this project? Was it always your intent to get the point of view from somebody who rhymes like Kemba as the main narrator for the project?
J.M. Harper: Really, what we’ve seen with the Young Thug trial especially is, that most of the time this issue is talked about in the national news, and the artist in question is always silent. You don’t hear that they’re told to be silent, they’re made to be silent. And so that was the most obvious entry point for me, was that you could tell the story from the artist’s perspective, and there was just probably something new and interesting to learn there. And something true to learn that that wasn’t being told to us through the D.A. or the prosecutors, or even the news media that was covering it. I knew that Kemba could tell that story with nuance and perspective and do it the way that I had seen some of the great black minds of our time – the great minds of our time, period – but certainly the great black minds of our time who could take something, an issue that seemed one way at first blush, and really articulate it in a way that reached everybody, no matter where you come from. That’s why I thought of Kimba. And I think that’s what he does in the film.
HHW: So Kemba, with doing this film and connecting with some of the other artists that have been under duress, unfortunately, like Mac Phipps – how was it for you to gain more insight into their experiences in talking with them for the film?
Kemba: It was a lot of emotions. Mac Phipps, I have so much respect for, just because he wasn’t upset. He wasn’t bitter. I would definitely be. He just had such an excitement for the rest of his life. You know, in hearing the story…it made me upset. I see why people don’t have faith in the justice system. How somebody could lose 30 years of their life, even when somebody confesses to the crime they get convicted for. How somebody could have their lives twisted against them, a line from this song, a line from that song. It was really unbelievable to hear. And we heard the experiences of a few different people like that, that their art forms are being taken away from them or being used against them. Yeah, it was eye-opening.
HHW: We get a chance in the film to connect with different artists from cities across the globe. What were the most memorable experiences in filming those segments for you both?
Harper: For me, it was Chicago. Just being able to talk to some of the first drill rappers, period. The way that they, 10 or 15 years on, talked about their experience with the labels. Getting 100 grand from a label to talk about what was happening around you. I didn’t know that Chi-raq, Drillinois was a term – I didn’t know about the Driilinois terminology, that it came from the first drill producer. And that term was used on CNN every night around that time. The origin stories of the music, and the complexities there that just hadn’t been spoken about and hadn’t been amplified. I’m sure they were being spoken about, but not until we were able to capture it within this whole context of black history. Could it be sort of put into a context that applies to what’s happening right now in courtrooms? That was one of the most compelling moments of it, every city presented something new. But for me, Chicago was special for that reason.
Kemba: Yeah, I agree about Chicago. I will say Atlanta, just speaking to Killer Mike. And he has a wealth of knowledge. But also, just learning about this. So the history, just to look how far back all this goes, like art being sort of not seen or not considered. Not respected as art. Back from rock and roll to Blues to jazz, back to Negro spirituals, and how this is just the sort of newest iteration of that. That was super surprising to me.
HHW: This is going to be my last question, kind of a little bit on the fun side. Whose idea was it to kick everything off with getting the two-way pager?
Harper: (laughs) So when I was cutting the Kanye jeen-yuhs documentary, which is mostly set in the late 90s, early 2000s, Kanye would always be like writing in the two-way. Two-way this, two-way that. Then I saw that it was all over the place in the music videos around that time and the Hip-Hop community had really embraced a two-way for its short life in between the invention of the pager and the cell phone texting. That became a really interesting starting-off point and then bringing it into the pawn shop was great. Those guys speaking in patois, I didn’t even ask them to talk like that. They asked, “can we say something?” I was like, “yeah” and they just started going off. It was just really organic. This little piece of Hip-Hop history was a perfect vessel for Kemba to be writing and communicating with, thinking that he was off the grid. So, that’s where it came from.
As We Speak: Rap Music On Trial airs on Paramount Plus on February 27.
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The Hip-Hop 50th Block Festival went down in The Bronx, on Sedgwick Avenue where it all started, on Saturday, August 12, and we were on the scene. Iconic MC’s like Mr. Cheeks, Grandmaster Caz, KRS-One, Peter Gunz, Pete Rock & CL Smooth and more, and even NBA point guard Kyrie Irving, checked in to salute the culture.
50 years strong.
Watch the recap above.
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Years before rappers began embracing the comparisons to artists like Pablo Picasso and Jean Michel Basquiat, West Coast MC Ras Kass was showcasing his lyrical art for the world to see, all while embracing the Van Gogh legacy.
Emerging on the scene in 1996, MC Ras Kass built a reputation for thoughtful tongue-in-cheek wordplay and heavy societal content with his iconic 1996 song, “Nature of the Threat.” Hailed for its expansive and piercing analysis of white supremacy, the song and the album, Soul on Ice, reimagined the perception of West Coast lyricism in the middle of its East Coast, West Coast tension.
Celebrated by his fans and peers as a wizard of words, his skill became his calling card as he continued to prioritize lyricism years before the culture shifted towards it. In the middle of his ascent, however, he ended up ensnared in a publicized dispute with his record label, Capitol, and the industry at large for respect, autonomy and proper compensation. Stalled and unable to forge the momentum he needed due to label disputes, he continued to fight for his brand, releasing projects with other comparable MC’s like Canibus, Killah Priest and Kurupt, as well as his own projects over the course of the next decade and a half.
Twenty-seven years after his debut release, Soul on Ice, Ras is just as skilled as he was then and equally as cynical. Hopeful, reflective and unapologetic, this interview is one of his rawest reflections on Hip-Hop 50 years after its inception.
HipHopWired: Ras, how are you feeling today?
Ras Kass: I’m alive so I’m blessed man.
Ras, you are regarded as one of the most prolific MCs ever, you know, people use the word legend a lot. I’m hoping that I could get some perspective and get some stuff from you that I don’t typically hear in interviews. So I’m gonna start with the beginning. You coined a phrase that said, Carson raised you, but Watts made you.
So yeah, I guess that would be right. I lived in Carson my entire life. But I didn’t socialize. I didn’t even go to school in Carson until [the] middle of the seventh grade. So my, you know, kind of my formative years were in Watts. That’s where my friends were. I went to hang with them when I got out of school. That’s where I played at. Summertime, that’s where I stayed at. So I always claimed both, and there’s been certain rappers that try to give me shit over it. I’m a Watts baby. People have to make things mutually exclusive, because people categorize things. And it has to be this or that. And some things are a little more nuanced.
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So how did both cities influence you and in what ways?
Lots. By culture, like my culture, how I was raised within Watts is very important. My mother came from a family that moved in the late ’50s to Los Angeles from Louisiana, their culture was Creole. Thereby, I was raised around a lot of Catholics, while most blacks are Baptist and all this other stuff. I was raised and went to Catholic school where the majority of the students were diverse. In Carson, we lived in a neighborhood where there was space. And what happens when you got that kind of space, people don’t socialize, they have enough space to be amongst themselves. So you don’t f*ck with everybody, you stay in your own space. And so I had my bedroom; I did what I did in my bedroom, in my garage, in my backyard. Sometimes I went out to the front and then socialized with those kids. But in general, I have my own world.
“I hope as a collective, as a people on the eve of the 50th we probably should be looking into having some type of a union.”
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HipHopWired got the chance to talk to the legendary Daddy-O of Stetsasonic about the new Stop Self-Destruction Movement that he and Chuck D have launched to help the community deal with the rising issues of drug use and gun violence.
An unfortunate fact as Hip-Hop celebrates its 50th anniversary, is that the ills of violence and substance abuse still claw at the community. The deaths of rappers such as Young Dolph and Takeoff have lent emphasis to the situation. In the past, Hip-Hop banded together with the Stop the Violence Movement which resulted in the classic 1990 song, “Self-Destruction.” One of the prominent artists on that track was Daddy-O of Stetsasonic.
Over 20 years later, Daddy-O and Chuck D of Public Enemy have teamed up again to create the Stop-Self Destruction Movement with the aim of addressing the younger generation as they struggle to combat issues such as gun violence, police brutality, suicide and substance abuse. We had a chance to talk to Daddy-O at length about the movement, its aims and its future projects.
HipHopWired: As a pioneering artist and figure in Hip-Hop culture and a historian of the culture, you have been witness to so many seismic changes in Hip-Hop. And I think it’s definitely not an understatement to say that you’ve been a pioneering figure. So with that said, how vital is it to you now for the Stop Self Destruction movement to be getting underway as Hip-Hop celebrates its 50th anniversary?
Daddy-O: I think it’s extremely vital. I think primarily because we’ve known music to be a mechanism for change. So that happened prior to our existence and that’s no disrespect to us as Hip-Hoppers, right? But we’ve known music to have catalytic changes in life. We could talk about Songs in the Key of Life. We could talk about Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. We could even talk about Millie Jackson’s records, in terms of music actually being elemental and change. We look at what these mayors and all these cities are going through. And so there’s a lot of people talking, but not a lot is being done. But we know that music can move levers, right? We know that music can move mountains. So for us, Stop Self- Destruction is an aid to attack the ills that we see.
In the very beginning, when we did the first record, it was just violence. We never thought that we would be saying Hip-Hop and suicide in the same sentence ever. It was always about life. We never thought we would be talking about that. So all of these things we call or label self-destructive or self-destruction, we want to be the soundtrack for the people that are doing the real work. If it’s Warnock, good. If it’s Mayor Adams, good, but if it ain’t you I’m calling you out. Because I know Do It All is in the community doing stuff. I know that’s a fact. I know Ras Baraka is in the community doing stuff. All we want to do is put a supercharger on that and do it the way that we did it with the original record with today’s popular artists. Because that’s who these kids listen to. They will not be listening to no KRS-One, no Daddy-O, straight out. Now, if you combine us with some folks, then that’s a different story. If I could put Chuck D and Rick Ross on the record together, then it’s a different story.
That ties into my second question. With the development of the Stop Self-Destruction movement, how has the feedback been with you reaching out to artists that are contemporary?
So, we just started and it’s been great. We do have a record done already with Tobe Nwigwe, who’s a contemporary artist and it’s great. West Side Boogie is on that record. And he’s already made a record called “Self-Destruction.” So the response has been good, but we’re just starting to reach out to folks and figuring out, like, who to combine on what record, because part of the effort is getting some of the classic artists with some of the new artists. I do want to get the art together. I want to establish the mentorship more than art. So do I care if the old cats rap? No. But do I care if the old cats are talking to the Kodak Blacks and the Tee Grizzleys? Yes.
As far as the planning with the movement, similar to what we saw with the original Self-Destruction movement, will there be things like panel discussions?
I think one of the things I’m most excited about are these roundtables I’m going to do in these neighborhoods called “Gangsters and Grandmas.” I’m gonna put five or six people from the neighborhood around the table and have a conversation. Part of this movement is very therapeutic for what’s going on in our communities. Our communities are disconnected from conversation. I’m not blaming the internet, but I am saying that part of that is that. Lessons affect people to say what they want to say about what they were and who these kids were and all of that. But the gangbanger used to talk to the grandmother, and that community was intertwined. Everybody knew what everybody was doing. Now, she might have been on her knees nine hours a day praying for him. But they did talk at this particular point.
So part of this movement is very therapeutic in terms of putting people together so much more interested in those types of discussions but not adverse to and not exclusive to that. There will be some panels and those types of discussions with artists as well. But the truth of the matter is, I need artists to rhyme. I got enough professors. I got enough people that are doing the real work, people that are keeping these soup kitchens open, people that are doing financial literacy. These neighborhoods, they’re the ones that we need to hear from.
We do that with teens, with pregnancy. We do that with suicide. I’m gonna have contemporary rappers talk about pain because one of the things about contemporary rappers is that they’re all young. And a lot of people don’t understand that they’re not demons, and they’re being demonized. I mean, they might be doing some demonic sh*t. But they’re not demons. Part of my effort here is to not demonize the Kodak Blacks of the world and show you that that same heart that you got, he got. But he may not have access to you to have that conversation with you. So what else is he gonna do? What else are the little girls from Memphis gonna do? You can’t sit there and blame them. But one of the things you’re gonna hear Daddy say over and over is: if Young Thug is not my son, whose son is he? Not Kenny Rogers’ son, Bob Marley’s son. Not Bon Jovi’s son. But we’re absentee parents.
What I’m trying to say, because that’s what happened in Hip-Hop, is our absence. There’s nothing wrong with Hip-Hop except us. The fathers of this thing are us. And so that’s why it’s me. Because I could speak as the ’80s dude that made classics, that spits fire today and bring it up to date.
And that brings me to my last question – you mentioned naming and practicing within these different issues within the Hip-Hop community and our community as a whole. So being someone who’s essentially done that within the culture as a whole, what would be the one thing that you would encourage anybody in the older generation, newer generation to do from this point forward, as Hip-Hop goes into the next 50 years?
Interestingly enough, my advice is not any different than it was in the ’80s. My advice in the ’80s to everybody was to learn how to do everything. It doesn’t mean you’re going to become an engineer, doesn’t mean you’re going to become a producer. But if you know how to do everything, then nobody can pull the wool over your eyes. So that in itself creates ownership. Because a lot of what we see now, is because of the lack of ownership, right? The lack of ownership is what creates a lot of that kind of vacuum kind of thing that I’m talking about.
And that’s my little area. I don’t really care about the other stuff. I care about Hip-Hop. I care about the fact that we started off as a non-violent mechanism. The gangs in the Bronx made a truce. They started break dancing against each other. They started graffiti writing against each other, they start DJing against other, and rapping wasn’t even around in the beginning. But the point of the matter is that out of not wanting to do violence, the Black space then became something else. The Zulu Kings actually were a gang and became guys that were rapping and carrying equipment for Bambataa and Jazzy J. Fast forward and we’re actually 180 degrees reversed. Ninety percent of the rappers on the radio are talking gang talk. And I’m not talking about just affiliates I’m talking about in it.
The way we’ve been looked at is the same way when KRS came to the Stop The Violence Movement the first time. His whole aim was, “How are we being looked at?” Like we’re the ones causing it to happen. Here’s the ugly part about my movement: We actually now are the ones causing it to happen. So I’m in the middle of a different conundrum than him. You know, he had the benefit of having a Stetsasonic, a Public Enemy. I got to talk to cats that are really in the streets. I’m explaining to them how it’s just not cool. A lot of it comes from them being able to express their pain. Because that has been something that they just haven’t been able to do. Kodak talks about it, but they don’t. Most people don’t get Kodak so you don’t hear it. So my whole issue is to get them to be able to bleed the pain. Trippie Redd does it. But they’re not hearing it. Especially the adults. I want these adults to know what’s going on with these kids. Because my peers are wrong.
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