-Talib Kweli, it's so good
to see you.
And thank you so much
for being on my show.
I know this is really kind of
a difficult, painful time
right now in our country.
-Yes.
-And I'd just like to talk
to a familiar face
and a familiar voice.
-No doubt.
Thank you for having me.
It's my honor and my pleasure
to be a part of this.
Good to see you, too.
-Yeah. I know. I miss you.
I always get excited
when I see you,
'cause do you remember
when we first met?
-I do.
First time we met
was in the reggae taxi,
I think,
or the airport in Amsterdam
with Justin Timberlake
and Cameron Diaz.
-Dude, we were
in the disco taxi.
That's right.
-Yeah.
-And we went to Africa together.
We were kind of forced
to be friends.
We were roommates
for the whole time.
-Right, we were tent-mates.
I learned a lot
about white people
living with you,
Jimmy, in a tent.
[ Both laugh ]
-Oh, no. Can you say it
on the show, or you can't?
-I learned that white people --
And I'm generalizing here,
you know,
but I learned that white people
play a lot of poker
and drink a lot of whisky,
at least the white people
I was around, so...
-[ Laughs ] I think I did
a lot of that, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to get into this with you
if I can,
'cause I really respect
your opinion on everything.
And why does this time
feel different, or does it?
-This is interesting.
Reparations
for African-Americans
is a sort of polarizing issue.
But during the Civil War,
there was a general --
Tecumseh I feel like
was his name.
He did Special Orders No. 15
where he said,
"If you fight with the Union
or support the Union
and release your slaves,
you get --
Slaves get 40 acres and a mule."
Now, Spike Lee
named his film company
after 40 acres and a mule.
We never got that.
Andrew Johnson reversed that
back in the day.
But it was one of those moments
in history
where they needed
black people so much
and they needed black people
to participate in the country
so much that they were
making promises to us
in 40 acres and a mule.
Now we have a situation
where young people of color,
young marginalized people,
have been trapped in the house
because of the COVID lockdown.
People haven't been able
to celebrate birthdays
with they friends.
People haven't been able
to graduate with they friends.
And then you have the perfect
storm of Breonna Taylor
and Ahmaud Arbery
and George Floyd
being murdered by police
or by white supremacists
who think they are police.
And so you have this energy
of people who have been trapped
inside the house,
and they need to release.
And so we have
this perfect storm
of this sort of riot energy.
The last time was saw
police precincts burned down
was in 1968,
when Dr. King was murdered.
Now, six days of rioting,
they passed the Civil Rights Act
after that.
So, the riot,
like Dr. King said,
"A riot is the language
of the unheard."
When voices are unheard,
they rise up in the streets.
And so now that the violence
and the rioting in the streets
is starting to dissipate
a little bit,
you got to look at
what are the policies
and changes
that come out of this?
What can we vote into being?
What can activists, whether
they believe in voting or not,
contribute to the situation?
And I think talking about
police reconstruction,
defunding the police --
The police have received
220% more funds
in the last 30 years --
you know, talking about
reparations, now is the time,
because I think the country
is in a place to hear us now.
-You've been,
through your career,
very outspoken about racism
and police brutality.
I was wondering if you
wouldn't mind maybe telling me,
what are your earliest
memories of racism?
-Wow.
You know, I grew up
in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I remember
being called the N-word
by a little Italian kid
that was on my soccer team.
Like, you know,
he was a cool kid on the team.
His name was Nick.
And we had a race.
And I was like, "If I could
beat him in the race,
I could be one of
the cool kids, right?"
So he said, "Let's race."
And we raced.
And soon as we finished
the race,
I beat him, and I was like,
"Ha, ha, I won."
He was like, "Of course you won.
You're a [bleep]" you know,
so that was --
I knew the word was bad.
That was the first time
I heard it.
But the feeling of feeling cool
and feeling like a winner
and feeling like
I was one of the cool kids
immediately was deflated
with one word.
And I didn't respond
to that situation
'cause I was like
7, 8 years old.
I didn't know how to
quite respond,
but it stayed with me,
and I vowed that I would never
let no white person
call me that word
without any consequence
or pushback ever again.
This is stuff that I've never
spoken to a therapist about.
This is stuff that I've never
spoken to my parents about.
But black people have to --
Not "have to,"
but we've internalized
this trauma
and this normalization of racism
that when it bubbles up
to the surface, people like,
"Oh, how you dealing with this?
So sorry."
It's like, yo, I've been dealing
with this my whole life.
I've been black my whole life.
It's nothing new.
-Yeah. Do you think with Twitter
that it's magnified
because people feel safer
that they're anonymous
and that they're behind
their keyboards,
and you don't have to see
their face and be up-front?
-Yeah, a lot of people
are critical
of my amount
of Twitter engagement.
You know, I'm on Twitter a lot.
So, me, I consider myself
a pro-black person.
My pro-blackness means
that I combat bigoted ideals.
I don't go for individuals.
If you say something
that punches down
to marginalized people,
if you say something
that's hateful or bigoted,
and it comes across my radar,
I was taught
that I can't ignore it.
Some people have to ignore it
for self-care.
But my self-care
is always speaking out.
-And how about -- Has that
spilled over onto your kids?
-Man, shout-out
to Amani and Diani.
You know, my kids are wonderful.
I love them so much.
When Trayvon Martin was murdered
by George Zimmerman,
I went to have a meeting
with Harry Belafonte
and a bunch of other people who
could amplify activists' voices.
And Harry Belafonte put me in
touch with the Dream Defenders.
They were occupying
the state capitol in Tallahassee
to sort of try to reform and
change Stand Your Ground laws.
And, so, when Trayvon
was murdered,
my son was 17 years old.
And I took my son
down to Florida,
and we occupied the building
with the Dream Defenders.
That was me and my son's
first, like, activism together.
Now I've been stuck
in California.
I follow my daughter,
Diani Eshe, on Instagram.
Shout-out to Diani.
I'm following her, and she's out
there protesting in the street
with the people in Brooklyn,
in the neighborhood
where my bookstore,
Nkiru Books, used to be.
So it hits close to home.
I see my daughter out there with
these people, and I get worried.
I get scared.
I'm like, "Yo, you out there.
It's a pandemic going on.
You could get hurt.
You could get killed.
Anything could happen."
But then I'm like -- I'm proud
of her at the same time.
She's my daughter.
She's doing exactly what I would
have been doing at that age.
So I got to just, like,
let it be.
She's the new me.
I got to let her have that.
-Yeah. Is it tough
watching the news?
-Particularly for black people,
there's two sort of
trains of thought.
One is we shouldn't
be retweeting
and showing traumatic
black images.
It's like how white people
used to lynch black people
and have these picnics
and parties
and just watch black death.
So I get that people
are traumatized by it
and don't want
to see the images.
But the flip side is, without
us seeing those 7 minutes
of that cop,
Chauvin I think his name is,
kneeling on George Floyd,
he would not be arrested.
If some people can't
deal with it, I get that.
But us seeing it
moves the dial forward.
-Yeah, and it's a tough job
for those journalists
and reporters
on the field, as well.
-Yeah. I mean, you know,
we're in an era --
Look, Donald Trump is trying
to be a dictator.
Donald Trump, he might not think
he's a fascist,
but he's moving in fascist ways.
When he talks about,
"When the looting starts,
the shooting starts,"
it's illegal to shoot someone
for taking your property,
especially if you're a cop
paid by tax dollars
to protect the people.
So when he says
that black people
who are rioting are thugs,
and he says the press
is the enemy of the people,
they feel empowered
to shoot thugs.
They feel empowered
to shoot at the press,
because the press
is enemy of the people.
I watched a black CNN dude
get arrested on live TV.
This is insane.
When the police
are targeting the press,
we don't have a democracy,
a republic,
whatever you want to call it.
We have fascism.
We have a dictatorship.
-And is there hope?
-Yeah, I mean, got to be.
I'm an artist.
I'm an optimist by nature.
You know, but you have to
follow the lead
of the people
who are doing the work.
Don't engage in erasure
of the people who are
talking about this
when the cameras are off.
When the cameras are not focused
on George Floyd
or Breonna Taylor
or Ahmaud Arbery,
there are organizations
on the ground doing the work.
There's the Movement
for Black Lives.
Their website is m4bl.org.
In Minneapolis, there's Black
Visions MN, blackvisionsmn.org.
There's reclaimtheblock.org
in Minneapolis.
You know, there's a new one --
I was reading --
Shout-out to Alicia Garza
from Black Lives Matter.
She works with an organization
called Black to the Future,
which have laid out
a 27-page black agenda
that I completely agree with.
And I think that the things
that are in that black agenda
are good for the whole country.
You know, the black agenda
is not something
that just helps black people.
The black agenda is something
that helps the marginalized,
the poor, the people
who are the fuel to the fire
that creates America.
-I always love
having you on, man.
I really, really appreciate
you taking the time
talking to me.
And, again, as I said
right before we started,
I missed your voice, and --
-I miss you, too, brother.
-Do you have anything new
coming out that we --
I know we're not here
to plug anything, but --
-Right. Well, I mean, you know,
I got a new album
with Diamond D --
Shout-out to legendary
hip-hop producer Diamond D --
that I'm working on.
But in the spirit
of what we're talking about,
a lot of people have been
hitting me up and saying,
"We need that Black Star album.
We need that Black Star album."
Me and Mos Def are in the final
stages of the Black Star album.
It's produced completely
by Madlib,
so shout-out to Madlib
and everybody in Oxnard.
But the new Black Star album
is dealing with a lot
of this subject matter.
And I'm working hard --
Trust me when I tell you
I'm working hard
to get it out to the people.
-I love you, man.
I can't wait to see you,
hopefully next time
in person, okay?
-No doubt. Let's get it.
-Stay safe.
Bye, buddy.
-Peace.
-Thank you, thank you,
thank you.
