Thinking about funny jackets.
[LAUGHTER]
It is a great jacket.
[CHATTER]
Hi there.
I was wondering, because I was listening to that,
and a lot of it reminded me of, is there a lot
of go-go influence here in A Tribe Called Quest,
for example.
Because to me, it sounded like there were some--
I was reminded of that as much as Eric B and Rakim,
somewhat, for sure.
Well, I can't fit it.
I couldn't fit everything in that's connected,
or kinship, or influence.
What I try-- even though we have to give these talks and things,
I try not to compartmentalize or generalize things.
So in that way, it's noise, sound.
So I don't think that it's hard to be on the planet and not--
and DC and New York are really close.
I like trap.
I've never been a trap fan myself.
But of course, that connection, that exchange, that dialogue,
they know and borrow, et cetera.
But the Chuck Brown sound, all that,
is for, certainly, older than the Native Tongues, Q-Tip,
and Daylight, and all that.
But yeah, I would hope that there is.
And across other genres, breathing the air,
listening and being alive that way.
That's all you're saying, is to be kept alive at the same time
go-go's alive.
You know what I mean?
And that's a big deal.
So yeah, I would hope that there's connection
and influence there I don't hear and that I do hear.
And yeah, those Tribe fans, are die hard for.
Thanks.
[LAUGHTER]
Life.
I don't know if you saw the--
there's an HBO series called Sonic Highways.
And they did DC last week.
I have two photos in that show.
Those were your--
Yeah.
So it was an awesome prologue to this.
But one thing that was interesting
that the show posited was that-- and in fact, Fugazi,
and the Discord scene, and go-go were related,
and that they actually did a double bill.
Yeah.
And this is sort of a two-part question,
because I wonder if the antinomian nature of go-go
is what's stopping its proliferation?
Or if this is corporate licensing
issues or some combination?
No, it's just African.
It's the most African music in America.
African shit can't be healthy in America.
They're not going to let a grandma, an African grandma,
be the shit in the city that they're trying
to reduce the Black population.
So they can achieve--
as soon as DC get statehood-- as soon
as DC gets a majority white population, which it almost is,
then it will have statehood.
It wouldn't going to be no black voting Democrats there.
It just wasn't going to happen.
And go-go is--
I play some stuff that's studio.
These, we're talking about poor people in dark places
on the weekend.
Now how many of y'all think that's sexy?
Who want to go to DC, and party with the poor people,
and get pregnant?
[LAUGHTER]
Don't nobody want to do that.
See?
I'm just making fun of that.
But I grew up there.
So I love.
I was the weird kid.
I was at the Minor Threat show, then the go-go show, then
the Fuga.
I went to one of the Trouble Funk.
I went to one of the punk slash [INAUDIBLE]
shows, where it was a disaster, but they all came together.
It was a little segregated.
It was hard to get up front.
It was all that.
There's a great go-go documentary
that went around the independent circuits maybe eight
years ago called The Pocket.
And Ian's in it.
I'm in it.
They got great footage if you wanted to look something up.
So I think that's what's stopping the go-go thing.
Also, that city is under attack.
There's no way to be healthy and be--
it's amazing that the music is still resisting.
It still has a grammar that some people understand
because it's-- so it's a tough one.
It makes you want to holler.
But thank you for that question, though.
I missed the show, the Sonic Highway show.
I didn't get to see it.
You don't have HBO GO?
And the pictures were in it, yeah.
I'll give you my password for HBO GO.
Oh.
[LAUGHTER]
Because you know I ain't got HBO.
I'm like, it had to be on HBO, didn't it?
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
Anybody else?
There's a question, couple over here.
Hi.
Hey, sis.
So I'm from the DC-Maryland area.
Right on.
So I've grown up with old school and new school.
Right.
And there's been a lot more go-go that's come out
that's very different from old school.
Yeah I started to play some, but--
So I was wondering how you felt about the go-go that's
come out in the last five years, like TCB and [INAUDIBLE]..
Of course.
Totally.
We had a meeting the other night.
And I read a poem for Polo, who died, [INAUDIBLE],,
fainted, TCB.
But I'm not the old head who's going to hate on the younguns.
Because I'm a writer.
Gertrude Stein said, the role of the writer
is to continue language.
Those young people are continuing language.
Man, what do I hear in it?
The old school is straight down beat.
[BANGING]
The younguns are like, (SINGING) pretty girls [VOCALIZING]
That shit is percussive and riotous.
They angry.
They jumping up and down.
Watch out.
I love it.
I love it because I can hear it.
But I'm also the weird artist guy.
No, I respect the old hands who don't want to dance like that.
They got big bellies, white tees.
They ain't trying to jump up and down.
Come on.
[LAUGHTER]
The Congos have been replaced with the rototoms.
The rototoms are like-- you know what I'm saying?
And just like when Public Enemy and The Bomb Squad dropped--
the first album, I forget what it was called, Yo!
Bum Rush the Show.
And then dump the dump, believe the hype.
Take something-- that sounds like an emergency.
(SINGING) Yeah, here it is.
Bam.
Man, you say you got that.
[VOCALIZING] How low can you go?
And damn, were the cops coming?
It was like-- and that's have the new go-go is.
It's like, well, damn, is somebody about to take my shit?
[VOCALIZING] Now look at us.
You're like, [HUMS] Ain't no foreplay.
But as soon as this is old hands, it'd be like,
ain't no foreplay in there.
They're just jumping up in there.
[LAUGHTER]
Boom.
Bop them.
I love it because it continues me.
And I have to learn that alphabet,
because it inherits the language and continues it,
even when it's a nuisance.
Because all Black music-- all music begins as a nuisance.
You ain't playing no blues-es.
It's that evil, devil rock and roll.
You know how it is?
It's always like funk.
My mother never let me listen to Funkadelic.
They so nasty.
[LAUGHTER]
"Maggot Brain."
Shit's a classic, man.
[LAUGHTER]
You know what I mean?
[LAUGHTER]
PhD.
Oh, "Maggot Brain."
I'm so glad you listen to that song, son.
[LAUGHTER]
But I love the hype.
I love the balanced speed.
But you are talking to the exception, so, no.
I wanted to.
I had to skip over with [INAUDIBLE],, and Genghis,
and all that.
So I had to keep up with the history pocket lesson.
But that's-- yeah, and then somewhere else after that.
Yeah?
Do you say there was one more hand over here, [INAUDIBLE]??
From there.
Oh, so we have time for one more question?
[INAUDIBLE] four minutes, let it go.
Might as well.
The next one?
Huh?
The next one?
[INAUDIBLE]
I don't care.
Yep.
You said two.
I don't care.
Hey, man.
Yeah, you spoke about the political and social
responsibility of the old go-go talker.
Yeah.
What would you perceive as the social responsibility
of the hip hop?
It's tough.
Thank you.
I don't think it's--
geographically, regionally, things change.
I think a culturish thing we know
that all artists, all go-go lead talkers, aren't created equal.
There's some sell out ones.
There's some [INAUDIBLE] ones.
There's some non-public school ones now.
There's some came from the suburbs.
There's some ones who had money already.
We're just-- people have to enter at their class
station or their socialization station of interest
as regards to how they breathe, how
they walk, what they've inherited,
what they think of our people.
I don't think you can be anything in art
that you're not in life.
So to answer that question, if you spoke to me specifically
about somebody from the KRS [INAUDIBLE] school, somebody
from the-- who the activists are, who are the dread,
whatever.
I could just go down a list.
I think-- but you're talking to, you're preaching to the choir,
that all artists have an activistic responsibility.
But that can't be true, because some people
are comfortable and OK with it.
And some people need you to be under them.
Democracy needs-- capitalism needs
there to be a lower class.
Capitalism needs somebody to be fucked up for that to work.
So the responsibility, lyrically,
how is it different for me?
How is care different?
How is-- I can be specific and say,
well, I'm tired of bitches, and hoes, and all that.
But actually, somewhere, there might
be a way to get at what's needed, being some of that,
if it's balanced, and integrated, and passionate.
I don't know how to speak about the quality of imagination
of that position.
But if they're writers, if they're poets--
and I'm not a person who distinguishes,
makes them distinguish between rap and poetry,
because that's just a branch on the, ah, wholeness tree
of expression to me.
It's just no different from the responsibility
of any artist who cares about human continuance.
I don't know what to say about it.
But we're outnumbered, the people who think that way.
And then look, at the moment, industry looks in,
and profit, and marketing, and the idea of who controls
what, Apple greenlights what.
It's a game just flipped and flopped, flip-floppity,
and dj jockety, you can't sock it in, and [INAUDIBLE],, and--
By the time it even gets to that, by the time I get my PhD,
my condition has been conditioned.
If I'm-- unless I'm exceptional.
Unless I've been, get thee behind me,
ODD, or whatever
the thing is that makes me walk like the others.
Or it takes me-- most people go to school,
where I come from, to get away from home, to survive.
You're going to school to survive.
But that might be, ah, the wrong way of thinking about it.
Not me.
So it takes exceptional beings.
I don't know what the role is to care.
I don't know shit.
Excuse me for that.
[LAUGHTER]
Is that it for that?
[INAUDIBLE]
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, guys.
Thank you, everybody.
Don't forget about next week, next Thursday.