Waiting on Reparations

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa explore the history of vaccine hesitancy and today's sources of skepticism around getting the Covid jab, beginning way back in the largely forgotten era of smallpox and bringing us into the contemporary discussion around vaccine education, access, and weariness, weaving together the voices of artists from MIA to Royce Da 5'9 and Nas as they explore the range of perspectives around inoculation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa continue their recent globetrotting with a trip to Uganda, where last week opposition presidential candidate and rapper Bobi Wine was arrested for protesting the detention of supporters who called into question the results of January's Ugandan presidential election. They discuss the slow rise of multiparty politics in Uganda, Wine's personal rise to political power, the appeal of liberal democratic politics among the fed-up Ugandan youth, and the ncumbent president Yoweri Museveni's attempts to co-opt Hip Hop as a cover for his regime's repressive malfeasance. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa explore Hip Hop's weaponization as propaganda in response to the recent musical clash between a team of anti-communist, Cuban-exiled emcees and their homeland government's defensive line of patriotic salseros. They then globetrot to examine other examples of rap used to further political agendas, from the jihadist rap of Deso Dogg and Salah Edin, raising eyebrows in Germany and the Netherlands, respectively, to CD Rev's state-sanctioned ode to their native Chinese soil. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa unbundle the issues of homelessness and housing precarity, examining their intersection with mental health, substance abuse, poverty wages, and the cascading effects of capitalist pressures on the housing market. DK speaks with Xulu Jones, speaker and frontman for the Savannah-based psychedelic rock group Xulu Prophet, about his personal experiences of the unseen realities of living on the street. And the hosts explore Hip Hop depictions of society's down-and-out, from Arrested Development to Kendrick Lamar. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa cast a spotlight on last week's riots in Spain in response to the incarceration of Marxist-Leninist rapper Pablo Hasel over controversial tweets and song lyrics in support of armed revolutionary groups and calling out the Spanish crown. They discuss the way free speech concerns in Spain can reframe our understanding of the first amendment and the rise of fascism in the United States and unpack some of the spicier bars that landed Hasel in the clink. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Fresh on the heels of the streaming debut of the new Fred Hampton biopic, Judas and the Black Messiah, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa explore the revolutionary organizing and public policy demands of Chairman Hampton and the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther party in the late 1960s and how their vision for Black socialist self-determination and cross-cultural coalition building compares with today's demands, tactics, and struggle. They also give the film's soundtrack a spin and elevate its bangers, including offerings by H.E.R., JID, and Smino. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Honoring the 15th anniversary of J Dilla's iconic instrumental masterpiece, Donuts, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa pour one out for the master beatsmith with a look back at Dilla's impacts on Hip Hop culture, discussion the medical struggles that lead to his premature death, and analysis of what these struggles and the struggles of those like him tell us about the healthcare system in the United States. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa trade takes on cancel culture, from the current calls to censure Republican lawmakers responsible for stoking the January 6th insurrection to Lin Manuel Miranda's criticisms of whitewashing US history to the blowback experienced by rappers Trina, for her comments on the George Floyd protests, and Lil Boosie, for allegedly arranging the statutory rape of his teenaged son. Along the way, they speak with Hip Hop artist and Buffalo-based English professor Chuckie Campbell, about his newest album “Curious Incidents in Cancel Culture." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa unpack the whirlwind week of transition between the 45th and 46th presidencies, detailing the nature and history of the presidential powers to pardon and enact executive orders as well as their most recent uses: pardoning Kodak Black, Lil Wayne and others, on the DJT side of things, and rejoining the Paris climate accord and doing immigrants a solid, on the Joe Biden end of the spectrum. LF goes off for a minute about $2k checks from her perspective having canvassed for newly-sworn in Senators Ossoff and Warnock. The hosts also review the latest tracks from the newly sprung jailbirds Kodak and Wayne, give Macklemore a chance to speak his piece on "Trump's Over Freestyle" and recommend this week's new Talib Kweli to listeners. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

It's been a heavy couple weeks-- months?-- and as such, Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa take this episode to indulge in some nerdy escapism, detailing the relationship between nerd culture, from comic books to video games to science fiction, and Hip Hop, touching upon the roots of all this in afrofuturist aesthetics and philosophy. Along the way, they speak with nerdcore rap icon MegaRan about his unique niche, and the importance of Black representation, within video game subculture. And they wrap up the week with a survey of nerdiness within Hip Hop stylings from Wu Tang to the late MF Doom and beyond. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa are joined once again by powerhouse organizer Paul Glaze to discuss last week's attempted coup at the Capitol and what's next for our country in the fight against fascism, dipping their ears into the insurrectionist musical fair of Ice Cube, DJ Green Lantern and Geto Boys. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the wake of the stunning and historic elections of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the United States Senate in their home state, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa take a deep dive into the community organizing that brought Georgia to this moment, what these wins mean for the Democratic Party, and what's next for their newly Blue state, joined by Paul Glaze, long-time Northeast Georgia organizer and former Deputy Campaign Manager for the Daniel Blackman campaign for Public Service Commissioner. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa draw 2020 to a close with a recap on the biggest stories in politics and hip hop, from the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and the portents of war that kickstarted January to the spring's presidential primary ups-and-downs, to the summer's twin detonations of Covid and Black Lives Matter to where we are now: still in lockdown, still fighting for Black Life, still spittin' mad bars. Along the way, they revisit some of the year's tragic losses, buzziest headlines, and best albums, including Eminem's latest drop, RTJ's hat-tip to the BLM movement, and Benny the Butcher's Burden of Proof. They close with a few predictions for the year to come and wish you a very safe and happy New Year -- thanks for hanging with us in 2020! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage underresources indigenous communities across the United States, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa consider the ways our country's Eurocentric obsession with quantification and categorization have fed the marginalization of Native peoples and African Americans alike, and how the historical undercounting of Native populations has led to the COVID crisis our indigenous brothers and sisters are experiencing today. They speak with activist, hip hop artist, and former state house candidate Lyla June about our shared struggles for sovreignty and how Native wisdom informs her environmental justice advocacy. And they honor Native hip hop from various corners of North America, from the boujee stylings of Haisla duo Snotty Noz Rez Kids to a pride in tradition seen in Dreezus' Warpath to the poetic resilience of JB the First Lady's Still Here. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The WOR crew is off this week, however Dope KNife sets the table for Next weeks episode and spits an exclusive freestyle Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Baby, it's cold outside... And keeping it warm INSIDE is expensive as hell! This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa discuss the impacts and perceptions of climate change in the Black community and the link between climate and economic justice when it comes to renewable energy. They speak with Daniel Blackman, Democratic candidate for Public Service Commissioner in Georgia, the lesser-known of Georgia's January runoffs, about the implications of the Public Service Commission on climate justice, utilities rates, and how Hip Hop hustle inflects his style of political organizing. And they cap off the episode with shoutouts to indie artist-slash-activists from Markese to Xiuhtezcatl who have addressed environmental concerns within their music. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa discuss the true winner of the 2020 general election: weed. Now legalized in four more states and with one-third of the US population now living in a legal weed state, DK and LF discuss the history of cannabis prohibition and legalization, racially equitable policies around legal weed in various states and municipalities, as well as the roots of Hip Hop's sacred bond to sweet Cheeba, exploring under appreciated weed-wordsmthing from Ludacris, Cyprus Hill, D'Angelo and others. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This week Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa are having a discussion of the problematic aspects of the mainstream hip hop we can’t help but love and where, if at all, a line exists that we can’t cross. Myke C-Town of "Deadend Hip Hop" joins the convo to talk about problematic music that you can’t help but dance to nonetheless, about music too fye to turn off, even if the lyrics themselves are a turnoff. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

This week, Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa discuss the topic of Socialism. It's roll in American politics, black people's involement in socialist movements and they chat with Communist rapper and producer, Space Baby, about where hip hop fits in with these philosophies Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa unpack the week's current events and newest music, from Georgia's stunning blue flip and their perceptions of this miracle from the ground, scored by Jim Jones' new track "Election"; to updates from the #EndSARS movement in Nigeria and the soulful tribute to those lost at the Lekki Toll Gate offered up by Burna Boy; to Drakeo the Ruler's release from jail, what it tells us about the prison industrial complex, and the feverish post-release studio time that gave birth to his new single "Fights Don't Matter." The hosts also speak with NPR music journalists Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden about their new podcast, Louder than a Riot, which explores the intersection between mass incarceration and Hip Hop. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

In the wake of a meteorically high number of gun sales since the pandemic and civil unrest hit, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa are joined by rapper and activist Squalle to discuss Hip Hop gun culture, the linkages between Black gun ownership and gun control policy, and rewind classic gun-slinging rhymes from Tupac, G-Unit, Gangstarr and Ludacris. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Well it's here folks. With the election just days away, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa discuss their motivations for voting, chiefly their defiance in the face of the long and hairy history of voter suppression that unfurls still in the GOP's latest tactics in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas. Along the way, they relay electoral takes from P Diddy to Blueface to Snoop Dogg as well as how electoralism has featured in the music of Eminem, YelloPain, and Dres from Black Sheep.

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa take a casual spin around the week's controversies surrounding Ice Cube and 50 Cent's support for the current president and evaluate the hypercapitalist tendencies of lyricists Jay-Z, Drake and Mace.

In part two of their series of interviews with rappers running for office, Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa sit down with hip hop artist and former Congressional candidate Paperboy Prince, who earlier this year challenged a 14-term New York incumbent with a platform of universal basic income, spreading love, and Paperboy Care (a version of Medicare for All). The emcees discuss Paperboy's early development as an activist, their music career, their policy positions and what's next for them in the electoral sphere.

Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa got bills, y'all. We all do. Medical bills, student loans, car payments, carceral debts-- most of us know the dread of a letter from Navient or a phone call from Sallie Mae. So do rappers from indie heavy hitters Sammus and Blue Scholars to mainstream giants like J Cole. But what do we do with all this debt? Author, documentarian, and organizer Astra Taylor joins DK and LF to discuss a radical new organizing strategy to not only abolish debt but establish a new society where debt no longer needs to exist.

Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa finally get around to what they've been waiting on: reparations. This go-round, they focus on the case for reparations as rooted in the history of land and housing policy in the United States. From the murder of the Walker family in Hickman, Kentucky to the use of eminent domain to seize the Espy fruit groves in Vero Beach, Florida to the recent struggle for justice for the descendants of Linnentown in their home base of Athens, GA, the hosts somberly recount the various kinds of land theft perpetrated by mobs, swindlers, judges and local governments since the antebellum era. Hip Hop has weighed in on the reparations debate, too, and the hosts allow the music T.I. and Killer Mike to make their respective cases for a past-due payout. Hip hop artist and city councilman elect Jecorey Arthur joins the hosts to make his own case for reparations as well as a Black agenda for local governments.

In light of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing, hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa detail the history of Roe v. Wade and the implications of the nomination of a conservative judge to the Supreme Court for millions of women across America. Abortion, however, is a complex topic within the world of Hip Hop, as reflected in the lyrical stylings of emcess from Doug E Fresh to Butterfly of Digable Planets to Common, Noname, and Illogic, representations which the hosts explore in this week's episode.

Hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa are taking the week off, but not without leaving our esteemed guests a teaser for episodes to come and a few bars about self care and upcoming topics.

This week, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa take a break from their historical deep dives to bring you the latest Hip Hop milestones, singles and music videos from this week and discuss their connections to current events and policy, from the late Eazy-E's birthday, early death from AIDS-induced pneumonia and its significance in the current conversation around an expedited coronavirus vaccine to the impact of Nigeria's response to the pandemic on Nigerian-Canadian rapper TOBi's latest visuals to the controversy eddying around Teyana Taylor's new video for "Still" and its depictions of slain Black figures.

Yes, THAT word. This week hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa discuss the etymology, usage, and controversy around the N-word, from the word's early advent in the Mountain Man Lexicon in the 1800s to its appearance in newspapers across the country in response to Booker T. Washington's White House visit at the turn of the 20th century to the battle between Nas and the NAACP over the title of Nas's 2008 album. The hosts allow the rap canon to weigh in as well, surveying discussion of the word on tracks from NWA's Niggaz for Lyfe to indie lyricist AllOne's Rush Hour '98.

Portland held the national consciousness rapt earlier this summer as nightly protestors faced off with jackbooted federal troops. But even as tensions there have somewhat calmed, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa are left with lingering questions: How does the Portland Hip Hop community feel about the Portland Uprising, and how has it taken part? The hosts give account of the Portland City Council's budget deliberations, which culminated in cuts to the Portland Police Bureau and a windfall for Portland Street Response, the city's policing alternative, before speaking with Portland-based Hip Hop journalist and police abolitionist Mac Smiff about Hip Hop's role in the Portland Uprising. They close out by traipsing through the musical offerings of Portland's robust Hip Hop scene, from the antiracist anthems of Swiggle Mandela to the brooding stylings of Mic Crenshaw to the effervescent Black joy of Karma Rivera.

Hot on the heels of the controversy swirling around Cardi B and Meg thee Stallion's raunchy club banger "WAP", hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa examine the origins and history of obscenity law in the United States and apply these lenses to sexually explicit Hip Hop throughout the decades, from Blowfly's Rap Dirty in the 1970's to Oakland rapper Too Short's 1983 album Don't Stop Rappin' to 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Wanna Be from 1990 and Lil Kim's groundbreaking 1996 album Hardcore. This one is NOT for the faint of heart.

The word of the day is J-O-B. From the Wagner Act of 1935 to the Amazon workers' walk-out in April, hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa take a trip through the history of the labor movement in America during the twentieth century, what it has meant for Black folks, and what it could mean for Hip Hop. LF speaks with philosopher and host of the Black Athenians Irami Osei-Frimpong about the potential for labor organizing and a federal jobs guarantee and the hosts revisit tales of hustle -- both 9-to-5 and on the block -- spun by artists from Grandmaster Flash to Biz Markie.

The idea that 'The police are the biggest gang in America' is almost a cliche at this point, and yet, it has never been more obvious than it is at this moment in history. In this episode, Linqua and KNife explore the formation of Americas police force, it's roots and it's original purpose. They are joined by the host of the "Hood Politics" and "Behind the Police" podcast, rap artist Propaganda to discuss how accurate that cliche really is.

What do we mean when we say hip hop is political? This week, hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa take a step back to frame the myriad ways that hip hop and politics collide. They journey through the transition from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras to the era of Hip Hop, the social forces that shaped early Hip Hop during the Reagan regime, and concrete illustrations of public policy's impact on the genre. They pick apart popular conceptions of "political hip hop" as a subgenre and take a look at some famed examples as well as some deeper cuts.

This week, hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa discuss Donald Trump's decades of scoundrelism and his recent rise to power and dissect how and why Hip Hop has, by turns, embraced and rejected the oligarch, from the fawning reception to his appearance on an episode of the Fresh Prince in 1994 to YG and Nipsey Hussle's scathing "FDT" in 2016.

Beginning of a series on hip hop activists. This week we talk to Shahid Buttar, Democratic Socialist Congressional candidate taking on Nancy Pelosi in California's 12th Congressional district and long-time spoken word poet, MC and DJ. The gang discusses his early music career, his views on the War on Drugs, his goal of defunding the Pentagon, his plans to defeat Nancy Pelosi in November.

Who are you, anyway? This week hosts Dope KNife and Linqua Franqa (finally) introduce themselves, discussing the story of how they met, a bit of background on their political views, and other lived experience.

What responsibility do artists have to amplify social movements in times like these? Building off last week's debate about Noname and J Cole, Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa address a few listener perspectives on this question before examining the roles Hip Hop artists and Hip Hop adjacent figures are playing in the George Floyd Uprising, from J Cole's physical solidarity in the streets of Fayetteville and YG's leadership in a recent LA march to Kanye's generous monetary contributions to the NBA's "More than a Vote" campaign. As well, they explore songs penned about or released for the cause from Conway the Machine and Lil Baby to CupcaKKe and Run the Jewels 4.

What does it mean to be American? Violinist and composer Kishi Bashi joins hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa to discuss the history and policy behind Japanese-American marginalization in the United States. They explore the parallels in experience and points of contention between Asian Americans and Black Americans, particularly during the Black Lives Matter era. DK and LF briefly discuss the recent Noname-J Cole controversy and tip their hats to Asian hip hoppers from Tyga (did you know his mom is Vietnamese?!) to Awkwafina and Dumbfoundead.

What's in a word? This week, hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa explore definitions of the word 'racism,' and the ways that language inflects our political reality. They speak with 22-year-old Kennedy Mitchum, who recently and successfully petitioned Merriam Webster to change their definition of the term. And they react to an array of songs addressing the topic of racism from LL Cool J to Eminem.

For nearly one hundred years, Black revolutionary and cultural organizations have been surveilled, infiltrated, and sabotaged by the United States government. But why? And how? In this weeks episode, hosts Dope Knife and Linqua Franqa discuss this seedy, largely untold history of FBI's entanglements with Black music and Black politics, from Nat King Cole and Martin Luther King Jr. to Tupac, Biggie, and the mysterious deaths of Ferguson activists. They also delve into the implications of government surveillance for the George Floyd uprising and explore the legacy of the FBI's history of covert violence in Hip Hop, from the Dayton Family to Kendrick Lamar.

Civil unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, has forced to the surface a centuries old struggle. How can we protect and make our Black communities whole? How can we move towards a future where the police truly do "Protect & Serve" all citizens of this country; a future where the police employ mediation and deescalation, not lethal force; a future where instead of locking people in cages, we rehabilitate them and restore their rights. The hosts of Waiting on Reparations, Linqua Franqa (aka Mariah Parker) and Dope Knife (aka Kedrick Mack), share their personal experiences with these issues and a few ideas on how to get the process started.

On June 4th, join Linqua Franqa and Dope Knife as they discuss the link between hip hop, politics, public policy and everything in between.