- Well, welcome, everyone,
my name is Datwon Thomas.
I'm the Editor-in-Chief of VIBE magazine,
and I welcome you to
Billboard Conversations,
in conjunction with
The Hollywood Reporter,
and VIBE magazine.
Today we're gonna talk
about the tough topic
of police brutality and police reform.
The title of this show
is, Facing the Music
The Fight For Criminal
Justice Reform in America.
So we have an esteemed panel.
A lot of good brothers in here.
First off, we have Jason Flom.
He is a longtime music industry executive,
and founder of Lava Records.
He's highly informed with his
work on the Innocence Project
and his successful podcast,
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom,
speaks to the injustices
that happens in the
criminal justice system.
He's also a friend.
Justin Moore, is a lawyer and advocate
for the criminal justice
reform and social justice.
His career has been focused
on civil rights litigation,
prisoner clemency, police
brutality among so much more.
And he's probably the only
other person right here
that has an original DJ Screw
tape like me (laughing).
We have the Grammy-nominated
superstar singer, Aloe Blacc,
with strong ties to philanthropic action
within the health sector
as well as demand for criminal justice.
His new song with Blu and
Exile is one of my favorites,
drum, African drum, thank you so much fam.
And we also have Hakeem
Jefferies, who represents
the Eighth congressional
district of New York,
which encompasses parts
of Brooklyn and Queens,
serving his 4th term in
United States Congress.
Rep. Jefferies is a member of
the House Judiciary committee
and the House budget committee.
He's also the fifth
highest ranking Democrat
in the House of Representatives.
On June 25th, 2020, the House
of Representatives passed
H.R.7120, The George Floyd
Justice and Policing Act,
which included Rep.
Jefferries' bill H.R.4408,
The Eric Garner Excessive
Use of Force Prevention Act
to ban the use chokeholds
by law enforcement
under Federal Civil Rights Law.
And finally, we have the
best-selling author, activist,
Shaka Senghor, who is
also my co-moderator,
who I'll be taking leads from
as he's the person I'll call
when topics like these arise.
He is a leading voice in
criminal justice reform
and a senior fellow with the Dream Corps.
His memoir, Writing My Wrongs:
Life Death And Redemption
in an American Prison was
released on March, 2016
and debuted on the New York
Times Best Sellers list
as well as The Washington
Post Best Seller list
and Oprah is one of his best friends.
SO, fellas we have a lot to get through
in this short amount of time.
I would like for Mr. Senghor
to go ahead and take the reins.
- First of all, I'm super honored
to be moderating this panel,
while I sit here with four of my favorite
and most inspiring men in
my life for various reasons,
it's just a super honor.
So I wanna just kind of kick it off.
I know we're talking
about facing the music
and music has been such an integral part
of social impact work and, you know,
civil rights movements
and things of that nature.
So I wanna start off with
Congressman Jeffries.
First of all, it's good
to see you again, brother.
- Great to see you, man.
- I'm really excited by the
work that you've been doing.
And you know, you've been a leading voice
on this bipartisan effort to reform
the criminal justice system.
So with that in mind, you
know, how do we leverage
the cultural impact of the music industry
to really help them
understand the importance of,
you know, bipartisan efforts,
specifically around
getting bad bills passed
and what is your experience
been in that space?
- Yeah, great to see you
again, I appreciate your voice,
your advocacy and your leadership
and great to be on such
a tremendous panel.
So my view has always been that,
we need to make progress
whenever and wherever possible
in the strongest possible way.
And when you're in a period
of divided government,
the only way to ensure that occurs,
is to try and find common ground
with the other side of the aisle.
And that doesn't mean
compromising your values.
But it means trying to figure out
where the points of commonality are
in terms of fixing our broken
criminal justice system
generally, and we have
a lot more in common
than one might expect with
the other side of the aisle
in that regard, because
they've concluded that,
the notion that America
incarcerate more people
than any other country in
the world, and in fact,
we know a significant
number of those people
disproportionately are black and Latino,
a large number there for
nonviolent drug offenses.
Until we've got this over
criminalization problem
in America, it needs to be
dealt with in a meaningful way.
And we took the first step in that regard,
Democrats and Republicans coming together
progressives and conservatives, the NAACP,
and the Koch brothers, the ACLU,
and the Heritage Foundation
and all points in between to
get a bill to the finish line,
and get President Trump
to sign it into law.
As a first step towards breaking the back
of mass incarceration,
and laying the foundation
of what needs to happen moving forward.
This moment that we're in
right now on police reform,
in some ways may be a
little more difficult.
However, we're pleased by the fact that
the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act,
which is the most progressive
police reform bill
ever to pass any House of Congress,
did so with overwhelming
Democratic support,
as well as some Republican support.
And many Republicans
who didn't vote for it,
have expressed support
for some of its provisions
such as criminalizing the chokehold
or establishing a national
use of force standard.
And so bringing together
within the music space,
using your cultural influence,
your voice in your power,
to elevate the public sentiment
that something needs to happen,
will be incredibly important.
- Thank you so much for that, Congressman.
Speaking of musical voices, Aloe Blacc,
one of my favorite musicians
and just favorite people,
for how he shows up in the world,
as you're listening to the Congressman,
talk about the uses of
music in these spaces,
what are some of the
things that you're seeing
and hearing from your colleagues?
And what is it that inspires you the most
in regards to these policing reforms,
but also in criminal justice overall?
- Well, thank you, Shaka,
thank you, Congressman.
I hear from my colleagues
within the music business
that we want dramatic
transformative measures to be taken
to change policing.
We are very, very happy and pleased
and we showed our support
for the justice reform bill
that the House passed on last week.
And what we wanna do is
find the way to encourage
the Senate to take this bill
and find all of the pieces
in it that matter the most
from a federal level and enact them.
And so one of the things that
I've been really trying to do
is inform and educate
everybody in the music business
about qualified immunity,
this Supreme Court doctrine
that qualifies police to be
immune from accountability.
It qualifies all state agents,
but in the way that the
House bill is written,
it focuses on policing,
which is why people are in the
streets protesting right now.
Accountability, accountability
is the most important piece
that I feel like the federal government
can manage right now.
Everything else that's in the
bill is absolutely necessary
to send a message to state
and local municipalities
that these are the changed
and modified policing for the better.
But the one thing that I know for sure
that our lawmakers can effectively change,
should the Senate adopt this
measure from the House bill,
is to eliminate qualified immunity
and I can't say it more emphatically.
- Well, thank you so much for that.
Jason, as I'm thinking about some of the
younger up and coming
artists, I'm a big music fan,
a lot of the way that
I show up in the world
was inspired by Nas ,you know,
phenomenal, classic album
Illmatic when he dropped One Love,
as somebody who started a
record label, first of all,
like, how did you end up
in this space, you know,
where you're not only one
of the greatest advocates
in the black community
but you also host an incredible podcast
that really talks about people
who are wrongfully convicted.
You know, how does that
work in your world?
And what are you saying
to your younger artists?
And if you had some of the
younger artists who are like,
you know, running the industry right now,
what would you say to them?
- Well, I think it's, you know,
social movements have been
driven by music over time, right?
And when we look back to
the 60s and 70s, you know,
and one of the greatest
examples, of course,
was Kent State, right?
And this feels like that kind of moment.
And within days at Kent State,
Crosby, Stills and Nash had
that iconic, incredible,
legendary song out, Ohio, right?
And everybody rallied around that.
I think we're in a moment now
where we're starting to see
artists, especially the young artists,
you saw the video that H.E.R put out,
HER put out the other day,
that was so incredible.
I put it on my Instagram,
which if anybody wants to
check it out, itsjasonflom.
And I think the artists are starting
to post and tweet and retweet.
You know, my friend Alec
Karakakatsanis was really you know,
One of my great heroes of
this entire entire movement
from Civil Rights Corps,
he posted yesterday about how Louisville,
and this is gonna blow your mind
if you don't already know it,
but Louisville just passed
the city council 24 to one,
an increase in the police
budget by $750,000,
while taking $775,000
away from the libraries.
So in the wake of Brianna Taylor,
they're exactly wrong
like, perfectly totally,
absolutely backwards by 24 to one.
So he posted that and I think Solange
and other artists have
repost it or tweeted it.
And I think at a minimum we
need our artists community
to come together and be vocal,
and ideally, release music
that speaks to this topic
and videos that speak to this topic
because we cannot let this fade.
This feels like a, this
is an overused phrase,
but it really feels like a tipping point
and we have to change it, wholesale,
we can't dance around the edges,
we need structural changes.
And then finally, there's
awareness and there's movement.
So, you know, I think the music industry,
it has to play a part in it,
or we should just stop doing
it, you know what I mean?
- Yeah, absolutely, so Justin,
you know every time I get a
chance to talk to you brother,
I always just think about, you know,
you're a cool young lawyer, you know,
kinda like the hip hop
lawyer, at least in my mind,
that's what I've been thinking.
And I was like, if I was his age,
that's what I would brand
myself as a hip hop lawyer.
But you know, as somebody who's working on
some very tough cases, you
know, you've handled some cases
that dealt directly with
police brutality or misconduct.
You know, what do you
see from your colleagues?
And what would you say to artists,
who sometime they may
tweet about some things,
but they just don't may not have as much
background information,
how do we bridge that gap
and what are some of the
things you would say to them?
- First and foremost, Shaka what's up man,
good to get to see you.
Jason, I got two of my big
brothers on the call so,
that's a blessing to be on this
conversation with you guys.
But from what I've been
seeing on the ground,
amongst other folks who do this work,
we see a lot of optimism for sure.
I mean, the fact that qualified immunity
is being talked about at
length, you have people like,
Rep. Jeffries, who are actively trying to
attack qualified immunity
and sovereign immunity
to ensure that people
have access to the courts.
So I think there is a lot of
optimism from that standpoint.
One of the things that Jason
just mentioned now that,
I think we need to,
you know, kinda explain
to the artists community too,
even folks who don't
have high profiles also,
is that if we want wide
scale change and reform,
we gotta include prisoners man.
Looking through the House
bill and also the Senate bill,
I didn't see anything
that mentioned prisoners
who have constitutional violations
that they might experience
every day with prison guards.
I think officer conduct or misconduct,
extends into our institutions.
So reading through
that, I mean, obviously,
the House bill is the
strongest bill that we have
and the Senate Bill is incredibly weak,
it's woefully deficient.
But I would like the House
to take it a bit further
and say, you know what?
Prisoners are experiencing
constitutional violations also,
but there's also a safeguard
or a preventative measure
that prevents them from
getting into court,
which is the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
So even if we do do away with
qualified sovereign immunity,
it's still gonna be tough for prisoners
to lodge their complaints
in court against officers
or correction officers who
violate their Civil rights.
So I think it's important that
we actually expand the bills
and I think the music industry
and those with high profiles,
can provide some of those deeper cuts
into what we need to
ensure that everybody is
provided protection by this
current piece of legislation.
- I have a quick question
for the whole panel Shaka included.
Just piggybacking off
of Justin's phrasing,
is it like the the privatized prisons,
isn't that the major issue?
Isn't that one of the
issues that leads up to
everything else that we're
going through right now,
as far as you know, what we're
fighting for in the House,
like to be able to have that funnel
go straight to privatized prisons,
it was spoken about in a rejuvenaze 13,
it seems like that stuff
over-standing issue,
would any of you have a place on that?
- Yeah, I'll let the Congressman
speak first for sure.
- Okay, sure, but yeah,
no, without question,
the general, what we would refer to as
the prison industrial complex,
which is the notion
that the criminalization
of young African American men and women
and our young black and brown
men and women in totality,
and their use as economic
commodities is necessary
in order to sustain the system
where certain communities
benefit financially.
And we see it in state
after state after state
inside the context of private prisons,
but also outside of that context as well,
private prisons have to go.
And I had mentioned the administration
that was previously here was on that path
to making that happen
at the federal level,
as soon as we get a moment to do it,
when we have partners in the
Senate, and at the White House,
we're committed to doing it.
And to Justin's point,
we're absolutely committed
to ending qualified immunity
for prison guards as well.
We thought about including it
in this legislative effort,
but then decided that because
there's some broader issues
that we're gonna have to deal
with on the prison reform side
of the equation, that we would
address it in that context.
And that has been a
space as we talked about
that has been bipartisan.
But this clear notion,
particularly around the failed war
on drugs, where you were
gonna criminalize people,
send them to prison, fill the prisons up
and many of these communities
they're in down and out,
downtrodden communities where
the automobile plant left,
the factory left, the
manufacturing situation left,
and then the decision is made
in the 70's, 80's and early 90s,
that we're gonna build
prisons in their place.
And the Federal government
was part of the problem
in 1994 Crime Bill,
because we incentivize
prison construction,
to the tune of $9 billion
and then told the states,
that if you want this
prison construction money,
you need to impose mandatory minimums
or to differentiate your outlaws
or get rid of judicial discretion
or impose so called 'truth in sentencing'.
So, to the point, that
one that you raised,
it's a whole system that was constructed
under the umbrella of a
prison industrial complex,
and that whole system
has to be dismantled.
- You know, that's a brilliant,
really break down, Congressman.
And one of the things that
I really think is important
for people to understand is the
police brutality part of it.
You know, as somebody who
served 19 years in prison
and experienced it firsthand,
but also witnessed it
consistently over that time,
these prisons are kinda
like the testing ground
for how much abuse you can get away with
because they're very clandestine.
And people aren't often
you know, really thinking
about men and women were incarcerated,
because of the marketing
behind the war on drugs
and they created this fear based campaign
where it just made us anti-thy-human,
you know, super predators and you know,
pretty much the boogeyman under the bed
and you know, if you
can dehumanize a person,
it's easy to begin to
abuse people in that way.
And so we see that a lot in prisons.
So it's really important
for us to connect the dots
with those two and then a lot of the pools
from which polices are
coming from as well as
correctional officers, come
from a similar background.
There's a lot of military veterans
working in those environments.
And so you see that militarization
happening and play out.
And I think about the chokeholds a lot
because I think about how men were subdued
when they were in solitary confinement,
when they'd literally
come in with six guys,
the extraction unit, and
oftentimes they're putting guys
in chokeholds after
they've pepper sprayed him,
and I just remember on numerous occasions,
always hearing person I can't breathe
and it wasn't just because
they were being choked,
they were being pepper
sprayed while being subdued.
And so you know, when I see images,
it all just brings back that
familiar ominous feeling
that I felt inside prison.
So thank you for asking
that a great question.
- I just wanna pick up on what
the Congressman was saying,
because two very important points.
One is that drugs are not the problem.
The drug war is the problem.
Drugs have never been the problem.
And we know that in places
where drugs have been
decriminalized, even in Portugal,
where they decriminalized
all drugs in 2000,
there were no negative effects whatsoever.
Crime didn't go up,
drug usage didn't go up,
overdoses didn't go up,
nothing bad happened.
And when you look at drugs,
the fact is that they're
used as an excuse.
They're used as the excuse,
we're gonna search your car
'cause we smell pot.
They try to use it as an excuse.
That's why they killed
Briana Taylor in her sleep
'cause supposedly she
had drugs in her house.
It doesn't matter, first
of all, she didn't.
Second of all the cops
that did it probably did.
And third of all, it's always
either the excuse they use
after they murder somebody
or the reason that they go
and do an illegal search or
stop or frisk or whatever it is.
That has to go away,
drugs need to be decriminalized
across the board.
Second of all, I've been saying that,
and Cassandra Frederick,
who's leading the Drug Policy Alliance
has great things to say about that.
I have one of my podcasts
called Power To The People,
that people can hear her
and hear her speak about it.
She speaks so beautifully about it.
The other point is back again
to what the congressman was saying,
as we watch these disgusting,
disturbing horrifying videos
of George Floyd and all the
rest, we have to remember
that it's happening every day behind bars.
We have 5000 Americans dying
behind bars every year,
and nobody knows them, nobody sees them,
nobody thinks of them.
But we have to keep our eye on that ball.
They're human beings
just like the ones we see
being killed in the streets.
And the fact that they're being brutalized
and many of them killed by guards,
is unconscionable, but
it's also invisible.
And that has to change, we
have to recognize that problem.
And it's not just in private prisons,
it's in all the prisons,
private prisons are part of the problem,
but prisons are the problem.
- Shaka you mentioned the
jails and the prisons,
and I just wanted to
address the unions, right,
the prison guards unions,
the police unions,
the sheriff's unions,
that are so impactful
and lobbying for the way that
they are able to operate.
And I wanted to bring that
conversation to Congressman.
What role do the unions play
in making making these kinds of
egregious abusive misconduct
part of their system?
But then how also do they
play into your elections
and the way that politicians are engaging
in order to get votes?
- Yeah, no it's a great question Aloe,
and I appreciate you raising
it because when we're thinking
about transformational change,
you of course have to look
in front of you and say,
well, what are some of the obstacles
to moving away from the status quo?
And one of the most significant
obstacles that's been there
not month after month or year after year,
but decade after decade,
have been the police unions,
both as it relates to making
a change legislatively,
and even in terms of how they
work to shape public opinion.
Because the reality is for
far too many police unions,
even in the most egregious
case, they see no evil,
hear no evil, acknowledge
that no evil was done
from their perspective.
And to me, and I've said this
directly to many of them,
that has to be broken.
Because I mean, is there no boundary?
Is there no line that can be crossed?
In defense of the perspective
because, you know,
if there's always a reason
to brutalize someone,
in your view, then how can we
ever arrive at some semblance
of transformational change?
So they've certainly been
a large part of the problem
even on qualified immunity.
You know, we've said, look,
we can agree to disagree,
but don't distort the facts.
Qualified immunity doesn't
relate to indemnification,
doesn't mean that someone's
coming after your home
in the context in which
we're discussing it means
we're talking about that
there's a civil right statute
particularly one that was created
in the midst of reconstruction,
there should be a remedy.
And the notion that this
traditionally created doctrine
exists as you laid out,
Aloe, as Justin talked about,
where effectively an officer
is held to the standard
of the least reasonable
officer on the force.
Now if I was held to the standard
of the least reasonable member
of the House of Representatives,
I'd get run out of Brooklyn.
And the notion that you
can have the ability
to take your own life, of someone else,
or the liberty of someone else,
because you're a police officer,
and you're held to such a
low standard is outrageous.
And so I think if somebody
is being an obstacle
to making reasonable changes,
then we've gotta call them out on it.
And oftentimes in the
police union context,
that's what needs to be done.
- And if I can chime in, so I mean,
if we have determined that
union serves as an obstacle,
we gotta find a way to
mitigate that right?
But it seems where there
power really comes from,
is their political power, their
ability to affect elections
with their deep purses locally.
We had a local race out
here, where the union gave
the District Attorney
around 200, $300,000.
On the local election,
that's a lot of money.
If I'm running for DA,
I'm gonna be swayed and persuaded by that.
So I think it comes to a
holistic type of approach right?
It goes back to the campaign finance,
which is not a part of this conversation,
but it actually is, if that
is their strongest, I guess,
way to persuading candidates
to allow them to be effective,
'cause effectively all unions
wanna support their laborers, right?
I guess you can't begrudge
a union for doing that.
But if supporting your
laborers puts others in danger,
then we gotta find a way to weaken
their political clout, so to speak.
So how can we tie in the
campaign finance reform campaign
along with this prison reform
campaign, and you know,
like just tie it together
and give it to our musicians
and let them know that
this is how we can really
affect change here,
which is severely weakening
these police unions around the country.
- That's an important point,
I'll jump in real quick, and briefly,
I practiced law back in the day
so I'm kind of a recovering lawyer.
And I'm gonna try not to
go on and on and on and on.
But the first bill that we
designated in this Congress
under our new majority, H.R.1,
was our Democracy Reform Bill
that deals with a variety
of different things.
But perhaps most significantly,
campaign finance reform.
For exactly the reasons that you laid out.
That in order to get to
transformational change
on substance, we have to break the system.
Because the status quo
relies on unregulated money
that floods the system to
try to elect certain people
who don't share our values.
And you know, we passed
that bill in the House.
It of course is languishing in the Senate
and so we're gonna have to
deal with that in November.
And hopefully we'll find
ourselves in a place
where we can make the type
of process oriented changes
that will facilitate
the substantive changes
that can dare have to be made,
because people are in office
who share all of our values.
- You mentioned, that a bill
is languishing in the Senate.
And, you know, I realized
that there is a method,
there's a system, there's a history
around how politics is done on the Hill.
I'm hoping that with the the movement
that's happening right now in the streets,
with the activists, that's
happening in the industry,
with musicians, actors and athletes,
that we can push Capitol
Hill to act for the will of
the people and not just
conduct business as usual,
but recognize that these are pressuring
and very serious requests and demands
and they have to act now.
And I think you know, when I hear
what Justin is saying, what Shaka saying,
what Jason is saying, and
thank you for hosting us,
that's why this is really
important for all of us
that have any influence amongst our fans
to put pressure on the Senators
that need to make a decision
now, so that, you know,
they feel that pressure and they know
that their constituents care,
so that the Representatives recognize
that their constituents care.
And if it's incumbent upon us as artists,
to take advantage of our platform,
to either write the song,
to write the op-ed, to
make the social media post
that says, this is what
the action item is.
Here's your Representative,
here's your Senator, call them,
tweet them, email them, and let them know
that this particular
thing needs to change.
And that's hopefully
what we can really use
this moment to create.
- That's absolutely important,
and I really love what
you're saying in that regard,
because I think as somebody
who does social impact work,
what is it that somebody
like me can do with artists
to simplify the messaging, right?
Our voting system is very complex.
And so a lot of times
we get kind of caught up
in the theatrics of it all.
And then the real things
that need to happen,
end up not happening,
because just not enough people
are getting out to vote.
So what is it that social
impact people and activists
who are oftentimes critical,
because we always want,
you know, where the celebrities at?
Why we're using them for voice?
What is the role that we can play
to help ensure that the message gets out?
And then I have another question
that's a little bit more selfish.
And largely because I really care about
people who do this work.
What are the things that
you guys are listening to,
during these times to get you through?
Like I'm a big music person.
So I'm listening to
Curtis Mayfield right now
and Marvin Gaye and just
some of the classics
and I say that because this
work is hard, it's not easy.
And times are hard and
I'm thinking self care
is a act of revolution in the sense that,
you can't fight for other people,
if you're not taking care of yourself.
So those are kinda the
two questions I have,
and just in interesting time.
Lets take anybody.
- I'll take that.
So to your first question,
how can artists and people with
high profiles help my work?
So I'm actually working with
Jason on a case right now.
And he's been, you know,
tremendously helpful
with with that particular case.
I won't go into detail because
there's some safety issues
with the client but I'm also
working with Jay Prince too
on the case with Larry Hoover,
that Shaka, you know about.
And they have just been
tremendous, I mean, you know,
having the ability to talk
to them and kinda understand
how can we get this case to market
so we can have people know about it
has been something that has
been really invaluable for me.
Outside of the actual tangible resources
that they provide too, but
so I think more artists
can get involved like that.
I have another case right
now working with DJ Mustard
and Roc Nation with and they have provided
some similar resources for that case also.
So just from those bare essentials,
but I think the ability
for an artist who has
an incredible social media
profile to post these cases
that keep them in the social,
cultural milieu so to speak,
I mean, that it's really
hard to put a dollar amount
on how valuable that is.
I think if you can get someone
to post something and say,
We need you guys to pull up
to a courthouse in Dallas
right now and we get say,
500 people, I mean, come on,
I mean, the District
Attorney or the Police Chief,
they're gonna see that they're
going to be frightened by it.
We don't wanna, you know, try
and, you know, move by fear,
we wanna move by love but we
need to move impactfully too.
And I think artists they
provide that impact.
So for them to continue doing
that, but also, you know,
talking to their other
friends and let them know hey,
this is how you can really get
in the game to be impactful,
I think that's gonna be necessary.
And what I'm listening to man,
I mean, Shaka, you follow me,
Jason, you follow me too,
so you guys see me playing
some wild stuff, man, it
could be Busky one day,
Jay Z another day, Johnnie
Taylor, the next day after that.
So I mean, I immerse myself
in what I've always immersed myself
and I go back to the fundamentals
of when I was a child.
So I'm listening to music when
I was eight, nine years old,
whether it's rap or the
music that my dad put me on,
which is Johnnie Taylor, the Marvin Gaye's
keeps me centered, keeps
me focused and allows me
to kind of, you know, get back
to this childlike existence
where I'm not carrying the weight
of the world on my shoulders.
- Yeah, I'm listening to Eugene McDaniels
his seminal work is "Headless
Heroes of the Apocalypse"
came out in 1971 was banned
by the Nixon administration.
They called Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic
and told him to shut it down, basically.
And when Marvin Gaye was
releasing "What's Going On"
and becoming the sort of
activist voice of the time,
the real answers to what's
going on was in that album,
"Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse"
and that's why the White
House shut it down.
And I feel like what artist
can do is recognize right now
that you know, voter suppression is real,
the the war chest that
the republicans have
to suppress votes, about 20,000,000,
they're spending about $20,000,000
to suppress votes across the country.
And they will do things like in Florida,
which was overturned, luckily,
banning voting on campus
for college students, right?
Because they know that
the 18 to 25 year old vote
is important and largely progressive.
So we need to be able to
do as artists is encourage
and not just encouraged
but sustainably help
voter registration processes
if that means you know,
being part of the lawsuits
that that Marc Elias is doing,
to sue these secretaries of state.
Secretaries of state just
for a piece of information
are the ones who control the
voting process in any state.
So we need to put the pressure
on the Secretary of State
say, like, we need vote by mail,
we need more ballot
places and voting places.
And we need to be sure
that people have access
to register online, since
it's not everybody can get out
to go buy stamps or to buy envelopes.
And they should also engage in
paying for it for the people,
you know, voting is our
right but it's also a duty.
And if we as artists can
encourage the secretaries of state
to make it easier for people to vote
will have really engaged
in what democracy is.
So that's another part of the fight
that I'm definitely joining in on
I think Organization Global Citizen
we'll be doing that as well.
- So yeah, I know what I'm
about to start listening to
is Eugene McDaniel, thanks to Aloe.
But what I've been listening
to is Sly and Family Stone.
You know, one good thing
about being as old as I am,
is that I was able to go
see Sly a couple times
in Madison Square Garden, I
actually saw him get married
on stage at Madison Square
Garden, when I was about
13, 14 years old and it was, you know,
transformative as you can imagine.
So that's what I've been rocking out to.
And I have a new artist I'm
about to release called Leo
the kind that I'm really
excited about, too.
So I'm just gonna put that plug in there.
But I think it's important to
recognize I wanna shout out
the Dixie Chicks now known as The Chicks
'cause they've been doing
incredible work as well.
And I think they're an
example and they have been
for a long time they've
been walking the walk.
And I think we need more people like them,
more artists like them,
standing up speaking out.
I think voting is so important.
I mean, it's gonna sound
like a broken record,
but voting in local races,
voting and DA's races,
where most people think
I'm not gonna go out
and vote for that I'll wait for the Senate
or the Presidential
race or whatever it is.
No, no, no, that is wrong.
Your vote in the DA's
race could be the one vote
that decides it, we've seen
races that ended up tied,
like literally tied.
So you can't stay home,
you cannot do that anymore.
That's not an option, right?
You gotta go.
And so for artists, if you
are encouraging your fans
if you're helping your fans
in any way to get out there,
there's also a great new thing
that a friend of mine just
launched called Defeat By Tweet,
I got a shout this out the
defeatbytweet on Twitter
or defeatbytweet.org, it's a
program where you can sign up
and pledge a penny or a dime or dollar
and every time the guy in
the White House tweets,
money is gonna go to
black led organizations
that are dedicated to getting out the vote
and getting him out of office.
So it's really a pretty genius program.
So it'll be I mean, if
we get this out there
and artist community can
be so helpful with this,
you could have hundreds of
thousands of dollars or more
going every time he tweets to
help put him back you know,
in the golf course or wherever
the hell somewhere else.
- That's genius.
- Where he's at right now.
- Yeah, it's pretty
easy, defeatbytweet.org,
defeatbytweet on Twitter,
post it, tweet it,
whatever you gotta do, let's
get that word out there.
And yeah, for the artists
out there, I mean,
I'm proud of what a lot of them are doing.
And I think we just need more of them.
And I think, you know,
shout out to you too
Datwon for putting this together.
I think there're more of
these things we can do
and also I just want
to say, I mean, for me,
this is a great honor to
be on this particular panel
as I actually, it's never
hard for me to talk,
but it's hard to follow you guys
so I'm just gonna say.
- So real.
- Can I piggyback just real
quickly on what Jason just said?
I think with local elections,
it's important for artists
and people with high
profiles to get involved
because if you look at what
it takes for a candidate
to win a local election, it
doesn't take a lot of votes.
You can boost the profile of
a local candidate tremendously
and they can win with an
overwhelming amount of support
versus their opponent.
I mean, a lot of times
artists getting involved
in national elections those are important,
But Rep. Jeffries, you
probably could attest to this,
if you had someone on
the ground in New York
with the profile of
you're in Brooklyn, right?
So the hottest artists out of Brooklyn
who just really supported you.
I mean, that would translate
into thousands of more votes.
And that'll create a public
mandate in which, you know,
Rep. Jeffreys' policy and
agenda would be something
that could probably get passed a lot easy.
So I think every city has
a popping artist, right?
At least in every major city,
every state outside of Idaho
or Wisconsin or one of
those states like that.
But most states have a popping artist,
they need to figure out who
those guys are on the ground,
these candidates that are
really pushing the agenda
that speaks to the plight of the people
trying to solve their plight,
and really get behind them
and not wait for these national
elections every four years.
So I think that's
something that all artists
can get involved with immediately.
- Yeah, that's a very important
point in terms, you know,
the twin pillars of our democracy
really are protest and vote.
Right, protests, we're seeing
it, the voices of the people
in the streets, and that is anchored,
of course in the constitutional principles
of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly,
freedom of expression,
the right to petition your government.
And that's what people are doing.
That's what artists are doing.
And that's been incredibly important.
But when you're petitioning
your government,
you're most likely to
receive a receptive audience,
if the people in the government
of the people by the people
and for the people share your values.
So that's why voting has
gotta be connected to protest,
and the articulation of the
issues that are of concern
and that are of the
urgent concern right now.
And voting broadly define, as Justin
and Jason and others have
said, every single office.
Because far too often, right, we focus
on the Presidential
election every four years.
And then we're not even
necessarily concerned
with the House or the Senate.
That's why Barack Obama got jammed up
for six of his eight years.
Let alone being concerned
about other offices, you know,
at the state or city level,
many of which can be incredibly important
in terms of making change,
two were mentioned,
the DA's races, and we've seen a rise
in progressive prosecutors being elected.
We did it in Brooklyn in 2013
with the election of
late great Ken Thompson,
who freed like 20 to 23
wrongly convicted individuals,
and set a national standard.
And we've seen progressive
DA's start to get elected
all across the country, that's important.
And secretary of state offices
because of the impact on voting.
And the amplification artists
participation at every level
of the electoral process,
would be incredibly important.
Because it's just an indicated,
you can have such an impact.
It's hard to impact the
presidential election
that we all will, in
some way, shape or form,
you can really move and impact an election
at the state or local level.
- That's what up man, I appreciate that.
- What's that song, what's
the music you're listening to.
- Exactly, Shaka, you
didn't let him off the hook.
We needed that before we
wrap up, we needed that.
- I'll be quick, it's a combination
of inspirational gospel,
you know, "He's Able", "We've
Come This Far By Faith"
having grown up, you
know, in the black church,
still actively involved in
the black Baptist Church.
And then you know 1990's
hip hop, you know,
the classics Nas, Jay-Z,
Biggie, depending on
what's going on the hill,
sometimes it's the best battle raps
give me some inspiration either take over.
- You're not jamming
Tekashi 6ix9ine Congressman?
- No, no I can't master that one.
- Oh man, we leave it
that way right there.
I wanna thank all of you
Shaka, Jason, Justin, Aloe,
Rep. Jeffries, thank you so much
for this impactful conversation.
This is needed for the people.
Once again, this is Datwon Thomas.
Just Shaka, one more time
man, I just gotta give it up
to you for taking the time out to do this
and getting us all together
and knowing all of us
that shows your work.
That shows your work on
so many different levels.
This has been Billboard
Conversations, Facing The Music
The Fight For Criminal
Justice Reform in America,
I'm Datwon Thomas, thank you all.
