They Survived So You Could Thrive

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot M, a production of I Heart Radio. What's Up Everybody? Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome to Jay dot Ill the Podcast. I'm just Scott and I'm sitting here with my sister friends like is st Clair, Hey, y'all, and Agia Graydon Danceler. It is me and I'm here. Yeah, we're here. You look, we we come to a certain place in our lives, you know, we're gonna do a certain place, and we realize, we realize we're watching the young paper. We're watching the young papers do amazing things. You know. I'm really starting to feel like, damn, every dream that our ancestors had is actually coming into fruition, like for real, for bro, do they know themself? I don't know if they know. I don't know how many people have paved the way for for for them right now, Like okay, Like I think I had tweeted something and somebody said, Jill Scott walk so Jasmine Sullivan and Ari Lennox could lie or something, and I was like, but actually it was Mom's made, it was Millie Jackson, it was my rainy, it was it was it was them, you know, Mr Smith that walked so I could run you know, so they could fly, you know, it's it's yeah, I'm wondering, might I'd be able to see the nineties though maybe not, you know, because there's there's young people right now, there's children that really don't even know who Michael Jackson is not connected to it at all at all. I don't know if there's the same metaphor. But something I met I talked to a thirty something you're Niggers, like I've never say a house party, was like, so how you yeah, but but this is this is we're at that place, yes, and I have accepted we have to accept that. And there's artists that you know, my mother was jamming too. But I listen to all our music. So that's the maybe that's the challenge here. You know, we watched their movies. We watched the movies, we listening to their music. And I'm not certain you know that that's what's happening here at a nice little trending weekend. Unbeknownst to me, I just found out I was trending over the weekend just artists, people talking about neo soul and and you know my afect on it, no, yeah, in a in a nice way in a very nice way. I was like, oh, wow, this level of love is is awesome sauce. I didn't know it, but I feel like, you know, in those moments that a lot of people who aren't familiar with any of the music, maybe they just know the highlights, you know, that they might have dug a little bit deeper to find out, you know, there's all kinds of music, pretty much like you know, medication or whatever ails. You know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting because the idea that now we're at this positioning where there are folks that grew up on our music, people who um, you know, and so this and that are making music or art or anything or doing anything having you know, the work that our particular generation has done, as you know, as a basis for or a continuation, And it's like that's a lot to kind of you know process. But then at the same time too, I feel like now we're also in that interesting space that our parents were in when we were coming of age, and now we have to own the fact that yes, there's new art, there's new ways of thinking that are coming along and that we have to and and that we have a pride in being a part of that. But at the same time, too, we have to do something our parents didn't have to do that, we have to really participate. And that's where it starts to get a little bit like, oh my gosh, because you know, who doesn't romanticize their own generation. I mean, at some point they were saying that the Boomers was the great generation or the best, you know, and then we had to clean the Yeah, we had to come in the shadow of that. Like I remember when to say you were a gen X was like a condemnation these gen xers and what are they and what do they believe in? And this kind of thing. I remember that being like a bad thing. And now the same young people who got really got the shaft, people talking all types of ship about us. Now it's like we're the middle aged folks now, and we gave them a little more grace than maybe the gen Z is to get the gen xers like the gen X get Baby Boomers a little more grace. And the fact that they, you know, came before us. It just has a minute to come on board. It definitely took us a minute. I was like, what is happening. Nobody's saying anything like I thought it was hip hop. You're supposed to tell a story, right, it's supposed to be like, you know, you're supposed to see images in the lyrics, right? What you said? What? What do you say? Herman? You know? I was like, what's going on? It was a lot of mumble rap for all time, and I just didn't get it until I got it. But don't you rewind back to like bone thuds or like I'm trying apprucial conflict or like what our parents were saying when it was like what the hell they But if I slowed down, if I paid attention, I could hear what they were saying. That's with the mumble rap. I was just like, I don't know what's happening. And the thing is that the kids know exactly. But the kids know exactly what they saying. Yes they do, they do. EXA was a vibration until I realized that's what was happening. I was like, oh, oh, they're seeing sounds laughing at the gen zars because that's not what we do as responsible jen exers. It's nothing to laugh at either. I think they're dope. I'm so dumb proud of y'all, Like you don't wake no, sis, I can't believe it. This is this is this is a new level, baby, I need you to understand it. Initially I was what, in fact, what's happening? It's going to god. It was so fast. Your movement was so fast, and it's still fast, to be a hundred percent honest, there was. I had a weird kind of interaction with one of my kids when he was with my oldest, when he was like, I want you've probably been like nine or ten, and I'm like, on, mylen, let me put you onto the real hip hop. Let me pitch you. I did the same. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna give you a little playlist. I'm gonna you'll show you what to listen to. Man, I've got the old school, i got the nineties joint. I'm giving them all this stuff to listen to. And it's and and and Honestly, at the time that I killed was nine ten years old. There wasn't really like the quote unquote mumbo rap. He was still getting a lot of m c s at that point, you know what I'm saying. When he was a so my son put me on too. Kendrick Lamar during his mixtape days. So it's like, this is so I have a actually I actually have a sort of a gen z that's kind of a millennial. Like he thinks like a millennial a little bit because his mama played him the Good Hide. No, let me tell you know. Listen, So I give this kid some stuff to listen to. Number one, Old school hip hop bugged him out. He was like, this stuff sounds dumb. I'm gonna be I'm listening. I'm just gonna give it listen for when we hear mumble rapping, we're like what and they hear a tune to listen. But but this is the thing for me that's nostalgic, and I see it as a foundation before a kid who has no ear for it, He's like, mom, this sounds like the stuff that they how they teach us to a B c s on the internet, Like this don't make sense to me. And this is with all due respect to old school hip hop because they laid the foundation for what was happening there and you can go back to certain artists from the forties who were doing that and and rapping like that. So I'm not this is not a disrespect thing, but this is a kid with fresh ears listening to this. Who this is? That's not a part of his generation. Then I gave him Wu Tang. So I'm like, let me, let me give you something else, you know, boo boom boom, And he's like okay, You're like, yeah, all right, So mom, what exactly do bees killer bees have to do with Kung fu movies? Well? Now, I was like, sir, it's art and you don't have to know what it means. We're asking what it means. Questions? Are you asking questions about this? No? Right, Like the black Man didn't even know what they were saying in those movies. On the other end of that spectrum, I played Woutang for Jet, who is now twelve. I played Mutang for him on the plane and he lost his mind. It was awesome. I was so proud. Oh, I was so proud. Yeah, I'm just saying, he's listening for the first time. I'm so happy. But you don't, like I said, I mean, you know what you can again, some some people are gonna get it. Some people are not going to get it. That's the pain. The point is at the end of the day that art, art is gonna art, no matter or what generation coming from. It's gonna do what it's gonna do, and some people are gonna be some people gonna be tapped in and some people are not. And it is secular moment that Jill you have with with Jet is the moment that we had with our parents when we popped our heads and maybe some Miles Davis or some Taddy Pendergrass and we started singing the words like that. It just felt like such It's like, I'm sorry, I mean Jet used to sing turned off the yan. I was like, yeah, something you would have took them downstairs and when your friends were sitting there now seeing for everybody else, shout what you could do? Remember that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be back after the break at the end of the day. Like these kids they developed, they develop an ear for what it is you exposed them too. But when they start going out into the world, like I give you a perfect example, it's like they again, like y'all know, my son is an old man, so he knows all the classic R and B the areas to know, you know what I'm saying, that's who he But as it comes to hip hop, like you know, if you ask him, he's gonna talk about slim village. That's who he's into, you know what I'm saying. And so there's there's just it is what it is. But I will say this that I knew a guy. There's a guy who is an artist. He's well known in Atlanta and he's a photographer. And kid was exposed to art, exposed to the artistic community. Boom boom boom boom. Kid comes out, makes a record and everybody from this catch generation is dogging this kid, not realizing that it's his son. So end of the day, the kid's name is l Yati. His father is an artist. His father is a part of our generation. He's an little Yati's dad. Um I don't I mean, I'm just saying like I don't know him personally. I just know he's a part of you know, he's a part of the art community in Atlanta. And my thing is like this, This is what I'm saying is that even when you are exposing your kid to what you believe is the next stage and step of the type of art and thinking of your generation, they're gonna make what they're gonna make. And even a kid who goes crazy for for wu tang or a kid who likes Teddy Pendergrass or a kid like who likes nineties R and B. We'll still and can still be a little yati. And that's no, that's just saying that when you get to your generation, you're gonna function in your generations where of thinking and and and and way of doing and expressing yourself. You know what I'm saying. If you watch Love and hip Hop and you also know that Deon Ferris's daughter is, and I'm gonna tell you right now that you would not know that that was Deon Farris's daughter because she is a hip hop artist and she is in the Atlanta scene, and yeah, she is a little Love and hip hop through this period, right because they're doing what they do right. Because they're doing what they do, they're not doing what we did. And and I'm and I'm not saying well when I say that, what I mean is that our parents kind of maybe how do I put this? Our parents laid down a certain foundation for us, and it was like, Okay, you get out of high school, you go to college, you know you right, you get married, you have kids, you know, you have your job, you get promotions, you buy your house in the suburbs. You do this, that that just that, that's that's how you live. And this generation is not, like, that's not how I live. You know. I've just ide it that I want to save seven thousand dollars and buy a bus and turn it into a house and I can move anywhere I want to whenever I feel like it, and I don't have to pay property taxes. And I'm like, damn, you smart, Damn I see you. You know the our kids, you know, to think go back to Kanye, you know, college dropout. You know, our kids are like, ah, you know, I might as well save this money, not get into debt, you know, and go have some experiences and learn from learn from some other people, and learn on my own and and have a career. There are twenty three year old millionaires. It started when they were nineteen. I'm like, damn, that unheard of. That was like it's still on the shoulders and the hills of somebody else. And it goes back to that too, like acknowledging that because even in that freak, that freedom, that freedom be can't came because you are allowed to watch your parents go through college debt. You know what I'm saying, you are you are you? You got to see what they went through and you went out. I don't want that for my life, and these other ways that I can do that. So it's just it's all in the process. PS. I just want to mention that Lolati's dad, his name is Shannon McCullum, and he is a photographer who takes portraits and documentary documentary work for Outcast, Dead Prayers, Too Short, and a bunch of others. So awesome, but and and and and super proud of his son, as we all are. But again, my point is that this is a kid who was getting bashed by gen xers about him being mumble wrapped, and this is that and the other, and it's just like it wasn't like this kid was not exposed to our generation in their art. He was, you know what I'm saying. So it's like there's there's just a matter of a respect level, probably, But I think the respect issue is really at the core of some of this. It's like what Laiah was saying, I feel like we're at this place where we want our respect, but I think that the respect aspect is looked upon differently when we were coming age. It's like respect was a thing that we owed must be done, and that was something that yes, must be can so think that what we failed to talk about is the what we failed to talk about, But what young people witnessed is how toxic our elders can be. And and so the lesson they came out of that with is yes, respect is important, but respect is earned. And I think that for us becoming elders in this space that we want that innate respect. We want that because I showed up respect, because they becomes basic struggle respect, Like you just feel like there's some basic you know, at least for us to the baby boomers went through some struggle, whether it was integration, segregation and protest and all that, but there's a basic grace, you know. I think I got the message. I was at an award show and a new artist who had who was doing well, I'm not gonna name his name, but when I was standing backstage and he damn near knocked me down, and I was I was watching him walk towards me. I know that he could see me. I couldn't see him, but he came by with such a fury to go nowhere, to literally stay in a few feet away. He almost knocked me down, and I was like, oh, okay, I see how this goes. Like he he may not have been familiar with me or whatever. And I of course that was the part that got me, the fact that you know, you respectful. No, I didn't make it okay. I just I was like, Okay, I see what's happening here. This young man is in the height of his you know, stardom. Yeah, he was young. It was new um at the time. Like, Okay, he's in the height of his new stardom and he don't have a good sense yet and maybe maybe later he'll have good sense. I don't know. It didn't exactly, it didn't exactly work out real well for him overall. But you know, some people just Jakie, you know what I'm saying, young or old? Yeah, I didn't. I mean, I feel like what I've been hearing from my peers. And then also, and I have some I want to go so far as to say I have some gen X friends who I have some millennial friends. I would say have some gen X because my my children are age range is wide, so I interact with gen X is probably a lot more because of that, But what I'm hearing from my peers a lot of the time is that who these kids are is just we're at a loss for what they want out of life because it just does not align. And I think even some of the things we've said here is that it just does not align at the core with some of the values that we feel have defined our our lives. I think sometimes we misname some of the values that define our lives. Number one, Right, It's like we we can be radical when you're young, but when you get older, you fear more. You you have children, you have more fear is installed in you. And it's like and and the idea of how will I take care of myself, how will I do X, Y and Z, And so we lean into the values that our parents gave us as a safety net. And I think part of that safety net is what keeps us from respecting the fact that the next generation is not trying to continue that fear. They don't have the same fear. And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, sometimes there's a bit of a jealousy that I hear sometimes with people from age range, where it's like when we see that they're not scared, but we switched and shifted some of our radical nature because we got a little oh yeah, like oh maybe just being jealous of their bravery. Because also but Asia, again, we have to reiterate because Asian made this point and we were talking to we were talking to two young people that are in that generation. Your revolution is very strong in your twenties. However, as you get older in your thirties and your forties, I mean, Tupac made the point. Kinder Lamar reiterated it. It kind of life. Life happens, and that revolution kind of shrinks a little bit. And that's just generational regardless. It's like every generation, and I would say, particularly for a couple of folks, you get the anti black beat down. Every black generation has to fight their revolutionary spirit because they get that black, anti black beat down. And if you get a certain age, it's hard to push back on you. You know what I'm saying, because you have seen some things like oh wait a minute, it that wow? You know what I'm saying. And I remember Carrie Bellafonte said something kind of similar to this, and don't quote me about exactly what he said, but he was talking about how like, at some point when you're young, it's kind of like certain kind of activism is a young man's game. When you get to a certain point, is your job to fund it. It's not your job to go to jail. It's your job to pay the bail. You feel me? Yeah? I do. Thank God for the role so many times as the older person. Right, So at some point we do kind of shift. But if we're not able to understand the language, if we're not able to communicate with each other, young people are going to say, you can keep your check m hm, you know, and what will raise the money on our own? Which they do? Yeah, this is the I was like, go fund me. What are you asking someone to bail your bills? What are you asking some wants to start your your business? Who? And the mean ship was happening. It was happening. I was like, oh, this is a thing, yo, And a lot of people are funding their businesses, are paying their bills, are bailing themselves out of jail based on you know, go fund me and the like. I'm like, I see you about fixing things and not falling for the similar traps. I'm impressed my grandmother had curtains, my grandmother had curtains everywhere because she grew up in nineteen seventeen, so the idea of having curtains, not only curtains, but silk curtains was a big deal. So there were curtains in the in the bathroom, the curtains that I had the iron, I was like, oh my god, when I grow up, I don't never want no gardens, and I don't have any. I don't, I don't have any. I may in the future, I don't think straight. Listen if you. I went to to a neighborhood and it was all of this, this beautiful, and it's just everything was just so appointed and nobody had curtains on the window. And I was like, wait a minute, why don't they have curtains because they're not afraid somebody's gonna bust their ship and come in there and take their stuff. I said, okay, I'm taking all the curtains down. I'm taking all the curtains down. That was a revolutionary moment for mee rid of of the past, or the idea of this is success. Curtains means success and less and safety and safety that's not that's not what it means. Now you know. So I'm just telling you these little revolutions, these little breakups are something. But but mind you, mind you this moment that you're having about your grandmother and something something as simple as curtains and the massive and cultural implication, the uh and political implications in our community just off you talking about them. Curtains. Girl, girl, it's so serious because, like you said, it's like, you're not gonna carry that fear and that miss I don't want to say misplaced value, but that value around success. You're not going to carry that into the next generation. But here's the vibe. Your son has no idea why you don't have curtains. He doesn't have that that point of reference. Because I was sitting here thinking, like I hope that Jill shares this story because we got to keep telling these stories and people understand why some people are still stuck in certain things because why you get it, somebody else didn't have that light bulb, you know what I'm saying. They still got curtains, even with their mama had curtain, their grandma I got curtain. I don't know why what we do. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, Like young folks, my mind sweet babies who are not babies, who who are having the game, so proud of you in so many areas, You're ration your your excers and your millennials, primarily your excers for now, they're still exceptionally valuable to you. So don't exclude yourself. You know, like I don't want to be around a bunch of old people. You ain't gotta be around a bunch of old people. Catch a couple, Catch a couple. They're gonna help you catch a couple. They may be the ones that fund your your dynamic idea. They may be the ones that peep you on some some serious game that you have no idea about. You know, don't don't isolate yourself because you're so dope. That's you're dope, But don't isolate yourself. Okay. On the flip for the people that are our age and calling themselves older and calling them debages and stuff, I'm with Asian on brilliant person in your life because I have to change your life. You don't even know about people. I'm just saying the things that young people can put you onto that you never even thought about before, that can just make life eat, Like, come off, stop stop being like I already know I've been doing this. I've been doing this, I know this, I've been doing it. I'm gonna tell I had a humbling moment and Jil I that is with Asia. But I want to tell you I've been hosting and being a radio check for two Starmer years and I was big up to the Black Star Film Festival. I was hosting their closing party last week and two things happened that were very generational. The first thing was it was two ladies on the floor and to me too, ladies, and I said on the mike, yo, big up to the two ladies and getting the party started up. La la la. One of the young organizers generations and organizers just like, hey, I'm gonna need you to use the proper pronouns when you're and she just said I'm gonna need you. I'm just you know, saying my own life of remix. But she was like, can't you just you know, maybe they them things like I said, well I will, but you do know that the people I was talking to like they are they examine like they're presenting them to And she's like it's cool, but it's still can you do that? Though my remix was like, you know, I started with y'all, yeah, y'all, we're killing it, y'all, Yeah, what up y'all? We had build up. The second thing that happened, big up to my brother Vick to do play legendary producer and DJ S been in the party. We we big up and here comes his dancehall section. You know, we'all look over to the dancehall part of the night right, And so Victor play the dance hall phone that is self familiar to all of us that we all be rocking out to on the floor. I'm rocking on the mic yea too with shoot to what I will say, probably queer women ran up to me in haste like sheuse, excuse me, use the host the hosts of health um um Okay, So you guys are playing a song and it's very triggering and it's talking about killing homosexual people and blah blah blah, and I was like, oh blah bar I had no idea in the midst of the conversation. You know, the song we earlier moved on, I'll be known to him, but he but they were like, can you still let him know? And I said, you know, picctre letting you know that that song was this, and he was like, wow, I don't even speak past fall. I had no idea, and I was like like, this is where we are. And then in that moment the gen xer and me said let me just say something on the mic so that people understand, because I can't just leave it like that. I was like, you know, big up to the family, big up, shoot the children that in the buildings, we love y'all. Some we are still learning. We may make some mistakes, but thank you for making us aware and we are with y'all. That is that is the most beautiful statement right there. Yeah, and it's so simple. It's really not that hard. And sometimes I think it's in hurance in them. They had this this bravado about being respected and it didn't matter if they were worthy of respect or not right, and it was enforced and we we just we just naturally went along with it. We naturally went along with it. Here's something's this is a small thing. Might be like, why so insensitive? That's where we don't know. I hate it. I hate stop. I'll talk about it later, but have been in it. Yeah, we'll be right back. I've noticed when you're walking down the street, there is a certain group of people that that will just walk through you and and automatically you kind of just you move yourself a little bit. And then I started to say, hey, I was here first. I was here first. You will have to move yourself out of the way, or we will look each other, and I quickly and mutually agree that we're both going to give a little I said, this is enough of that ship. But that comes from these young people who are like and what so what. I cannot assume that somebody is going to respect my my little twenty years you know what I mean, or twenty one or whatever. That I can't assume that. But at the same time, I have to respect I'm glad it's night. What is it, fifty some years in this business, in the entertaining business, still singing her face off. I have to respect Shaka Khan, the door, she opened, all the doors. Okay, what are you talking. I have to respect Grace Jones until something comes out about them that is maybe cancel worthy. And then there's always something cancel worthy. It's always that I'm talking about human beings. Yeah we were young too, Yeah, I mean to be honest I feel like that I'm gonna I'm gonna just throw this out here, and I mean I might be wrong, because I mean I could go on Twitter and maybe y'all can who me wrong one is, But I have to say that I honestly feel like gen Z people of color, and particularly black gen z ears, I think they are willing to give a lot of grace. I think the a yeah, I think the arrogance that sometimes that we witness sometimes can be the fact that that we have folks within groups that young black people are a part of that are not black, and so they bring some of their privilege into those spaces and some of that arrogance and entitlement into those spaces, and so people from our generation read that as the whole generation when it ain't themb Sometimes it's like you can go into situations where and I'll give an example, like there are some of my queer friends will be in queer spaces where they're talking about equity and they're talking about stuff like that, but there's a lot of disrespect and entitlement from white people in those spaces. White women in those spaces, or white men, you know, and or even white trans people so they have a lot of different situations within the LGBTQ community that they're dealing with a lot of those microaggressions, you know, within a marginalized community. So I'm saying all that to say that some of our perceptions, I think are mixed together with privilege and entitlement that we see coming from groups that are not our young people. And I'll say I I will jump out there and say that most of our young people are like the young women and or the young folks that came up and spoke to Layah during that party. They're saying, Hey, I just want to put you on or I want you to at least let this person know. I think that what happens is that when they receive energy that says that's too much, that's confusing, I don't have time for that. That gets on my nerves, y'all. People too sensitive. When they're met with that by their own people, that is hurtful and it puts them on a defensive. And that's what causes that feeling of like, no, you don't get any grace, You were dead as wrong. All you're gonna do is dig your foot into sand and double down. And if you're gonna double down. Let me double down for you, Boom, get to get, get to step in it. And I don't care what art you made, I don't care who you are, I don't care what you're doing. What I'm not gonna do is have you double down when you're dead. That's wrong. And that's that's my interpretation of those types of interactions that I've seen where it sounds like accountability to me, Boom, this is this is the error of accountability. I always said that the maturity means accountability. That's how you know that you have, you know, maturated. And this is a whole. This means that people on a hole are maturing. They're they're saying, we're not gonna be quiet about the pedophile in the family anymore. We're not doing that because what we're not going to be quiet about you're touching, you know, touching the small in my back, or or or saying nasty things to me, you know while I'm at work. We're not gonna be quiet about that. There was a lot of suffering, a lot of suffering from a lot of people for many, many decades. We took a lot of ship on the chin. They are no longer taking ship like that, and I'm I'm impressed, I'm inspired, and and I'm this is amazing to me. Okay, this is amazing to me that this is how I feel. But this is me crash and burn, no Jill, because I'm just wondering. I'm impressed, and I'm so glad because, like agent says, we have language now to be able to say things. But it's interesting because as you were talking, you know what I started thinking about. I started thinking about the baby, right, and I was like, now, I definitely was one of these people that was like, yo, dude, that's not gonna work. You're gonna I can see why you're gonna lose jobs and day. But then they're be little small pieces of information to come in, like you lost your dad and your brother in the same year, and the fact that I really don't. There's also rumors of are you sure you know who you are? So so then we use that that gen Zer, Okay, that's not the cancel part, but the part about language and understanding trauma and things of that nature. Do you use that there, because y'all they also gave us that along with the cancel and accountability stuff, right, But if this is a hurt person that hurt people. M R. Kelly, you know, how do you handle? Do you straight cancel or do you go let me dig deeper? Let this this person needs to be dug deeper into and invested there. Well, let me say this. I feel like that we're gonna have to learn how to compartmentalize certain things. Right. So, if you have a situation where this man is losing money at a corporate level, you and I both understand that that is a white man's decision, right, And so a lot of times we get upset about ways in which white supremacy affects people. So let's say if it was a white artist that says something similar, and let's not even say or what they said that about black people. Let's just say they said that about people with HIV. Okay, Let's just say they said the same thing, okay, and not make a false equivalence, because that's nerve that drives me insane too, is that. Okay, let's say this to the same thing. Of course, we know, according to the rules of white supremacy, that person is not going to be punished at a corporate level the same way that a black person would be right, right, So let's make sure that we're clear that there are not black people who have HIV or who are part of LGBTQ community or both that are making decisions to take money out of that man's pocket. That's not them. So it's so important for us to not then say that that's the group that's being hardest and less and having little grace because they're not. There's not a white man that is in the community. You don't know that because no, I'm not saying it could be I just said white man. It could be a white gay man. It could be a white train, it could be whatever. The point is that white come with privilege, White comes with entitlement, White comes with power in the country structure, that in the structure that we live in. So we have to be clear when that is in play. But we can't then say or say things that are hurtful to black people who are a part of that community and make assumptions about what they have power to do when they don't have any power to do that. So and the reason why I say that is because when you start saying, oh, you can't say nothing about them, who to them you talking about, Because then when you say that you're harming your own people, because your own people are a part of that community and trust and believe no one is canceling anybody on their behalf. They're not. And the reason why that's true is because our hip hop music has gone unchecked for many years talking about gay people. We sat there and was you were about the dance to a dance hall song that was and nobody was thinking about it because because the hip hop group and was like, I got to that one point that I always sang and I was like, free fly flow, Oh I can't that's crazy. That's crazy with that too. Why was I ever cool with that? So it's not that baby does not. And then another part is he did. He did another thing, the double down. So there's the double down that makes your own people like, well, now I'm not coming to save you. Now, I'm not coming to help because I could have come to help you with that situation, but now you're doubling down as if I don't exist and you're erasing me, and to me, it's like, and I know as a woman how that feels when as a black woman, A lot of times black men want us to come to their defense, but then you double down. It's like, yeah, I would have came to your defense when the white man came for you, But what you did was you double down on what you did as if it didn't affect me too. Damn it n sorry, So I need you to cut it the hell out. You know what I'm saying, And I'm not coming to help you now. It's too many black men who would never do that who need my help. So it feels complicated, but it's really not. And what I think, honestly, what we all need to do is when we let's go back to language, one of the best things, and let me say terms like intersectionality. Those are not new terms. That's not that it come from millennials, that came from a Gen xer. It's actually a very old term. Okay, so we didn't use it. Yeah, it had to trickle down from academia into everyday conversation. But what I'm saying is that now that we have language, and now that we understand that, in order to make an analysis of a situation, we're gonna need to understand what a word like racism actually means, what a word like patriarchy means, what white supremacy means, what homophobia means, what misogyny means. The actual meaning of these words is important because that's how we're able to differentiate what we're actually looking at, and we're not getting emotional and deciding that, Okay, listen, this this somehow implicates me. So I want you to have grace for that person, because I think that could have been me. So I want you to have grace for me. But do you ever find yourself having moments where you're like, Okay, that's hmm, that's prejudice, or that homophobic or yeah, yeah, yeah, especially when you those moments when stuff. A lot of times it happens when you're singing back stuff you like, listening to music, saying things, repeating ship that you heard your whole life. A lot of us felt like, let's keep it like funky. I remember when the survivor R Kelly Being came out and a lot of us were feeling guilty about not that we rolled with the elite things, but just that we didn't fight it or he didn't protesting like that they'd protected like why was that? Why was he still allowed to make baby making music that? You know what I'm saying? So I feel like a lot of us. That's one of those things that we were like, Okay, her mama, her daddy was cool dad? Then right? You know, well, how cool are you now? Singing and dancing and making love to a dude? Who does that? A six year old? So we still got something. We got our finger in the game. But I just as some of us was the same age as her that part, how are we going to protect her when we was just kids ourselves and maybe even in Peter Now you want us to tell our truth, Joe Scott, Joe Scott, you ain't gonna tell my truth by what I was doing when I was sixteen. Mmm, I wasn't. I didn't catch on quite frankly, I ain't gonna lie to you. Ain't catch on until a chocolate factory. I didn't catch on chocolate factory, But like, is this something A really walk on us? I didn't catch you on until then. I was like, oh, I like this music, but I didn't catch on. Initially the vibe got me. I was like, what's happening? I don't know. It wasn't for me. White for us was moving fast. Like I tried to explain the cellfls younger than us like, Yo, the Internet hit in high school, son, like the internet was it was at high school, and then from there it's just fast, fast, fast fast microwave beat her cellphone ba ba ba ba ba box. We are the last generation to know what it's like to not have internet. We are the last generation to not know what it's like to have a cell phone. Everybody got cell phone and cell phone beeper, big blocks that people were carrying around your car. Yeah, I'm saying even the phone in the car our head of cord, like you know, and that was just on TV. I didn't have a clear, I didn't friend. I had a beef for that. All that that was, that was a big moment was beef in me. I mean now nine oh God, one four three for I love you come for through like we we. I really feel like our generation. I mean, I guess, like you said, every generation feels like they're important and valuaful. But I'm just saying that are the last generation to know a world, an entire world that will no longer that no longer exists because okay, encyclopediaes, I still got something. Suck them a cyclopedie is you know, I can't ride with you all on that I'll go with everything else. But no, I didn't. I was poor. I did not have encyclopedia borrow. You didn't go to the I had to go to the to the to the library and use them. You couldn't check out people, mind you, mind you. You couldn't check out encyclopedias. You had to use them in the library. That's right, my mother. I don't know who gave it to I think one of the doctors she worked for gave her a set of encyclopedias. And you couldn't. We looked at them things. Oh we sat around and looked at them and the that they were all, you know, alphabetical. It was such a source of pride to have a set of encyclopedias announced. You don't remember when you had to learn the card catalog how to even walk into a library and figure out how to find that stressed me out. I hate it. It stressed me out. It stressed me, y'all remember micro feche I was just about to say, don't sell the periodical section. Please don't sit me down to periodical section. You remember you remember when when you went to the library to listen to records? Do you remember sitting by the radio day waiting for your favorite song so you can hit them two buttons and record it. Play record what I've just been record the whole quiet. Oh my god, No, I had to push records. Wouldn't get the commercials, the dedication, more conversation after this break, Do y'all remember the radio because there will be a generation of people who, yeah, like black radio when radio have money, and they will come out to stores and give way stuff. You know you want to call all it with like all that what I'm just saying, like, come come on, jen z understand that we was the first really fast moving one, so y'all fast too, But we move we think the thing is in our minds. We think we're moving at the speed of light. I told my daddy, I said, we we got it hard because we got to keep up with them and still communicate with y'all like you don't understand in the middle. Oh, let me tell y'all, I guess hosted on talk radio about a week ago. Who y'all bless the baby boomers because let me tell you something, girl trying to who let me? Well, yeah, that was a lot trying to use language that I've come to understand better from a younger generation and then speak them and then explain them to my mother's generation. Was an interesting exercise. I am this whole calming down thing for me. I told you all about this. You know how I deal with with a lot of people that I just came read down. I just think I have to do the same thing with my mother. I have to calm down to explain things. You know. I can't do that. Yes, she's still smack me, you know what I'm saying, So that's not what I want. But I'm trying to inform peacefully with respect because that's my tactic, and that's how I get away from my mama knocking my head off because she's still six one, okay, and pick up to the baby boomers that are taking the information because I'm gonna say big up to Karema. We had a whole conversation the other day about binary versus non binary because let me tell you about this again in the progress thing. My mom is a former flight attendant and she was letting me know the changes in the airlines as far as the generations go. So now flight attendants will now be able to wear non binary uniforms you know you'll be able to wear sneakers because throughout my mother's reign, flight attendants had to wear heels no matter how long the flights. You know what I mean. There are certain things being changed, like now men can wear their hair down to their shoulders, are not in a ponytail like things are happening. Things are changing in baby boomers. Get out of later, I don't know, get down the laid downs. I don't just say retired. Well, I want to give a shout out to um an elder here in Philadelphia, Mama Ma Sean Goza, and I love her. I follow her on the end on the social media's and I'm sounded like on the social yes, I I follow her and she is a black woman who is easily in her seventies and to our sixties. Because I don't even want to I'm I mean, I could guess whatever, but she black woman. She could be eighty for real, for real, and we wouldn't know. But the point is that I love watching what she posts. This is an indication of a person from the boomer generation that's really reading, that's staying in conversation with young people, who loves young people. You know, because I think sometimes it's just hard. It's hard to just lead from love mm hmm, you know. And that's that's one thing I feel like we've had a hard time doing, not just us though, because defining and understanding what leading from love looks like that has been a work in progress, and that's been a part of our pushback from all the different things we've we've endured. And then, you know, Jill said something earlier, I just want to make sure that we don't forget. She talked about how we've been through some things, you know, and endured some things and took some things on the chin and didn't know we had a right to say I'm present and I get to be in courting in this moment. And I think that if it's one thing I would ask of younger generations is to consider that part of it, because you know, we didn't know or understand that we could say no at all well to do because I'm older than you, right, and for us, we tried to find the best way we could do it and still not we we tried to to ride the fence, and some of us really suffered because of that. You know, the outlook wasn't as big now now there's I mean, we used to say things like when you grow up, you could be anything you want to, but that anything has gotten so much bigger. There wasn't a black president, y'all living in the general people was born with a black president. Wiser's jet was he doesn't know anything different anything. I mean, well, I mean we had that moment and having another, but nonetheless, you know, just the fact that that was a part of his reality, you know, like the the bigger is cotten so much bigger, it's so much more vast. There's there's you know, Tarzan. Shout out to that young man, you know out there, the black Tarzan just out there, you know, informing us about animals and being a part of nature in such a wonderful way. Oh honey's going. But it is also exceptionally informative, and that is his existence. That's how he's living his life. That kid on TikTok not TikTok um. I do like the kid on TikTok to. I can't think of his name. Sorry, I don't do the TikTok but I will be on in Tarzan, can I also? You know what I want to throw in there to the to the generation of a different world, yo, not for nothing. A good cheat sheet is to really understanding what's going on. You know you grown ish, grown ishron is shout out stick grown Ish. I My girls watch it, so I'm gonna go ahead and co sign it because I'm like cause you're Sometimes we'll be like, yeah, that's it, and the young people be like no. Family and friends. Thank you so much for listening to Ja dot Ill the Podcast. We were growing, yo, were growing, trying to learn a little bit more every day when we come together, it is a very very powerful thing. I'm proud of you young people. I'm proud of you old people too. Just keep working forward and everybody in the middle, work the middle. Baby. Talk to you later. Hi. If you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six, Hey, j if you want to add to this conversation that's eight six six four three nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents j dot il the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott Laya st Clair and Agr Graden Danceler. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun. It's produced by Liya st. Clair and me Eves Jeff Cope. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Larenger. He is gorgeous jesuys y'all Instagram. I put two ends on the back of three ends on Tarz and Black Tarzan. Go get adducation. J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcast us from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.