The Breaks

It’s a two-parter of Kendrick Lamar clashes: J. Cole’s public apology and Drake’s ongoing affronts. Hear how Confucius and Fresh feel about the beef, Hip-Hop Facts, the latest headlines, and an Unpopular Opinion on hip-hop’s “health”.

The full transcript of this episode of The Breaks is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Fresh Knight I’m Fresh and you are now listening to the Breaks podcast. These are highlights from our Saturday night hip-hop show on KUTX 98.9 in Austin, Texas. My co-host Confucius Jones and I are native Austinites and we love talking to hip-hop, Texas hip-hop, hip-hop history, and what’s going on right now. And just so  you know, the opinions expressed in the podcast are our own and do not necessarily reflect the position of KUTX in Austin, Texas.

Deezie Brown We here to talk over the airwaves. No matter where you’re from or where you stay. 98.9 you in the place to be. Wake up, wake up, wake up this is the Breaks. You could be anywhere but you ain’t. So let’s proceed with the wave. 98.9 You in the place to be wake up wake up  wake this is the Breaks.

Confucius Jones An eventful week in music.

Fresh Knight An eventful week.

Confucius Jones I feel like the Future versus Drake discourse has been going on way longer than I thought. Considering it hasn’t been really any type of response to the first album, we don’t trust you with a song like this, except from J. Cole, who dropped his album.

Fresh Knight We might.

Confucius Jones Not believe this later, which we did not realize he was actually serious about doing.

Fresh Knight Well, a song at least.

Confucius Jones I think this whole thing.

Fresh Knight That’s crazy. The rest of the project. We’ll get into that, we’ll get into that, we’ll get into it.

Confucius Jones But the main thing is just what you said. Because just like would like that from Future and Metro’s, first round of albums. The album’s good, but the thing that keeps getting buried is like, that is the number one song in the country, and that song, Kendrick Lamar disses Drake and J. Cole. J. Cole responded on a seven minute drill from his My Delete later album.

Fresh Knight Which is currently still up.

Confucius Jones In that song, J. Cole responded to Kendrick. Everybody’s like, okay, you know, now we finally this is getting somewhere. So on Sunday, J. Cole had his annual Dreamville Fest.

Fresh Knight Last weekend he did his annual Dreamville festival in North Carolina.

Confucius Jones Which I got a little bit of it. Well, not during because I was on CMT. I didn’t.

Fresh Knight Realize that he was streaming.

Confucius Jones And I didn’t realize he that’s what I’m saying. I signed up, catching up like on YouTube and stuff. And honestly, outside of J. Cole ratio, I’m guilty. I didn’t know they had too many songs. They’re one of those group, like, you forgot how many times you.

Fresh Knight Know we saw them live. I kind of realized that I.

Confucius Jones Didn’t see all of you, but, that’s another story, you know? So when J. Cole got to perform, he basically said that he didn’t like the diss song towards Kendrick. It didn’t sit right with his spirit.

Fresh Knight He hadn’t slept in a couple days.

Confucius Jones He hadn’t slept in a couple of days. And he might take song down. That caused the internet of course going to uproar.

Fresh Knight Because he apologized.

Confucius Jones That. And from what I can remember, maybe the first time an artist of that caliber has done that in-rap wise, because people say, well, who at night.

Fresh Knight People also do at Jay-Z. And then I quickly had to debunk them and say, Jay-Z still wrapped at NAS did y’all not hear blueprint two? Yeah, no song, not that line. Not even. Did you not hear the song like J. got?

Confucius Jones Jay apologized. Cause Jay got super personal and disrespectful talking.

Fresh Knight And his mother came and said, yo, you went too far. You clearly crossed the line.

Confucius Jones The worst J. Cole said about Kendrick was your album’s okay, which sounded like everybody. That said, I don’t think J. Cole believes that.

Fresh Knight You and I. It was just ironic that you called To Pimp a Butterfly the snooze fest, when that has been the knock against you and your album.

Confucius Jones You have a song called Floating Closer.

Fresh Knight I want phone calls, with you – I want to feel good. That my joy make a.

Confucius Jones Man, a good song but you can’t talk about. You gotta stop my foldable, bro. But yeah, the main discourse I saw was because some people were upset because.

Fresh Knight I was upset.

Confucius Jones Hip hop is a very competitive genre.

Fresh Knight As a context for.

Confucius Jones Its birthed out of competition. So to see, you know, artists of that caliber back down from a battle was something that just completely took us by storm.

Fresh Knight It took him totally by surprise. Not a word is that nobody at Dreamville, even none of the artists nobody knew on the Dreamville team, knew that he was going to get up there and do that.

Confucius Jones I fully believe that. I fully believe they were ready to go to war. And J. Cole.

Fresh Knight Apparently nobody knew that he was adding seven minute drill to the album either to the project to might delete later. That was a top secret thing that he decided to do himself. No. I added that later on after the project was I.

Confucius Jones Get it because I can imagine the Dreamville camp, which is J. Cole’s team, having the same mentality as Roc-A-Fella had. When, you know, NAS beef goes or disturbing the peace when the T.I. things grandiose like, you know, this mentality of, okay, well, the leader of our team is about to go back and forth with another rapper. We have to be prepared to assist when we need it. So for him to get on stage and say, hey, man, look, I don’t want nothing to do with this. I like the guy. I like his music. I’m out. I can appreciate them being backstage. Like, wait, what?

Fresh Knight What?

Confucius Jones We’re not, we’re not.

Fresh Knight We’re not. We’re not getting into this.

Confucius Jones Okay, well, I guess you know, so. But like I said, both sides of discourse was. One called J. Cole everything but the child of God for him, apologizing in that one to be a part of it. Because once again, there’s a good section of hip hop that’s not used to somebody backing down from a challenge. But on the other end is people that said he did the right thing as a grown man to do whatever he can to protect his mental health and his peace. So what do you think? I get your opinion. I give you mine.

Fresh Knight Jermaine, Jermaine Cole, Jermaine Cole.

Confucius Jones They lied about why plaintiff didn’t inform was why? Because his mom was white.

Fresh Knight That’s not what he said. He said he don’t care about them Grammys because those people had never done anything for him. That is what that man said. I would.

Confucius Jones Watch my being a Grammy boy.

Fresh Knight For what?

Confucius Jones I know she could be good enough.

Deezie Brown Why would he.

Fresh Knight Be on the Grammys?

Confucius Jones But he got money anyway anyway.

Fresh Knight Anyway, Jermaine Cole I am immensely, immensely disappointed when I saw the video of him on stage apologizing to Kendrick and saying he was conflicted. He had slept in two days and wasn’t sitting right with him. And I really respect this guy. And I was like, man, that’s cool, but we gotta get rough and tumble, man. This hip hop, this rap, like this dude done called you out, then said, man, we got like, you been beating on your chest like you King Kong. And now I’m Godzilla. I’m here and you just fold it up. You just. You just folded up and just said.

Confucius Jones He would foreclose with him.

Fresh Knight And. He just fold. Basically say, I don’t want to do this with my friend, and your friend clearly want to do it with you.

Confucius Jones You know, in hindsight, on something like that, Cole got the least of the vitriol from Kendrick Did he? All I heard him say was it’s just big me after big three. That’s the only thing I’ve the story. So I’ll go get first.

Fresh Knight Half of this song. The first half of that verse is about Cole is going back. Are you sure? I’m very sure.

Confucius Jones I thought that was about Drake.

Fresh Knight Man. Nah, man. No, I saw it in the lyrics. I go, I saw an entire video that broke down.

Confucius Jones I don’t like those videos.

Fresh Knight But the whole thing about, he got stick. He ain’t Andre 3000 on the song state J. Cole reference. Keeping a stick on him like he’s walking through the woods like every verse was. I think it was a lot of shots. They went at Cole. But anyway, back to my opinion. As a rap fan, I come over here all the time and tell you I love rap beef. I like rap beef. As long as we keep it in the confines of rap, I don’t care and all that stuff, you take outside of rap. I think everybody’s goofy with that because this is rap. We rapping. Like Confucius said, this is a pillar of the culture. Like rap, beef is braggadocious. It’s built, kind of built off of this. But I just was disappointed because I was looking forward to him and Kendrick, two of the greatest rappers of a generation, going at it. And yeah, Cole, we could argue for the last ten years has been sticking his chest out and poking it and beating on it like he’s King Kong, saying, none of y’all can see me. I am the best in this. And just like my God, Kendrick said on the Control Verse, which was released in 2013 and in 2004, he came in the next year, in 2014. Gabbro, he said in the song, you might be Drizzy Drake or Kendrick Lamar, but check that birth date. You ain’t the God, I’m the one. And I think Kendrick perked up. It has been perked up since then and was like, okay, I’m awake, I’m gonna see what Jermaine does. And Cole has been on a tear trying to prove and show everybody that I’m not as boring as y’all think. I really do this. I really rap.

Confucius Jones I don’t make clean-house music.

Fresh Knight And anybody that I get on a song with, I am going to kill them bar for bar. And he has done it up until now. So it was it was an immense disappointment, man. I was so looking forward to that. But I also get it where hip hop is in a space now where we care about mental health and protecting your peace in maturing and being the bigger person and knowing when to say when. And J Cole said when it just was hard, it was hard to watch from a rapper. You have watched come up and grow into music and just like, oh man, you got it. This is how you going out, man? I don’t think it affects his legacy as much as people think it is. I don’t think it’s saying that it is affecting his life. He’s still one of the best rappers out. He still better than probably 95% of people out there rapping. That’s a fact. Okay. What do you think about his music or how he handled this situation? He still raps better than you. And that is you. Whoever have you take that he. He’s the Arabs. Better than you, man. He’s still one of the top artists. When the fall off comes out, watch it. Do numbers. I don’t think it affects anything, but yeah, I was just disappointed. Man, I will disappoint. I get the other side of the line. Oh I hear oh, I see you beat a big person. I’m petty. I don’t ever want to be the big person. I’m sure I never want to be the bigger person.

Confucius Jones I think what Kendrick did to Cole is comparable to is I just watched the doc. I’ve seen him when it came out, but I watched the game the other day, the The Redeem Team, which is the story of the 2012 Olympic team.

Fresh Knight Yeah. Oh eight was the year we took bronze. Oh yeah.

Confucius Jones And that team, basketball Olympic team. That documentary starts off. Oh, it’s 2008.

Fresh Knight Yeah. Okay. All right. 2004 is the year we took bronze.

Confucius Jones Yeah. 2018 Dream Team. And so. This on Netflix now. When the clip starts off, it’s it’s LeBron and Carmelo Anthony explaining how Kobe told them when they played Spain. Who was the team to beat internationally with.

Fresh Knight Paul.

Confucius Jones Pogba saw who was Kobe’s teammate on the Lakers. Kobe told them on the Olympic team like, I know I play. They’re going to run first. It’s going to be a screen. I’m gonna run right through Paul and.

Fresh Knight Run straight to his chest.

Confucius Jones To just remind him that even though yes, we are teammates in America on this international stage, we.

Fresh Knight Are friends.

Confucius Jones But no, I’m going to I’m it. Basically, it was a kind of intimidation thing. Like I’m going to show you that on this court competitively. I’m going to there’s no holds barred. Yeah. So I think this one Kendrick did the cold definitely what he did. And I think Cole like Paul Gosar took it like wait a minute. What wait I didn’t know you could do that to me. I thought we were friends, so. Yeah. Yeah I’m like you. My my hip hop purist in me is like, yo, that’s Kendrick’s not saying he doesn’t. He hates you. I like, I think he just can’t stay in Drake.

Fresh Knight I think he, I really doesn’t like.

Confucius Jones Slavery at all, but I think he was just Kendrick was just trying to create distance between him and everybody else. Yeah. For sure. So yeah, for me, cold is like, you know, it’s like cold. You, you talk a lot in your in your rap especially features about how much better you are than everybody else and how you are ready to murder anybody who gets in your way. So when you finally have the big dog, just like in boxing, if the person who has been almost has the same exact record you is challenging you, you kind of and you’re the heavyweight you are, you claim to be the heavyweight champion. You’ve got to kind of accept the challenge to prove that, yeah, I am the best. That’s Floyd Mayweather saying he’s like, I’ve beaten everybody. I said I couldn’t.

Fresh Knight I’ve heard the whole argument there. You know, rap battles don’t really determine who the best rapper is. No, they may not determine who the Bradbury is. But yeah, when you are standing at the top of the mountain poking your chest out and beating on it and saying, I’m running this and y’all can’t see me and anybody steps in a booth or a studio with me, I am wiping the floor with you. At some point, somebody is going to make you prove that.

Confucius Jones But on the other hand, I respect J. Cole for what he did because at the end of the day, you do have to protect your piece. And he probably feels if I keep this going, it’s going to get to a place that we can’t come back.

Fresh Knight I think that’s what he was.

Confucius Jones But granted, Drake clearly doesn’t care.

Fresh Knight But Kendrick cares about doing that with Drake.

Confucius Jones But I think Cole is like, you know, I and and Cole like us is if you’re a hip hop historian, you know, at some point beefs do kind of get to far, which.

Fresh Knight Is I was having this conversation with somebody on Twitter on.

Confucius Jones Let me let me say this. Let me say this. So I respect him backing down. But I do think he has to in the future acknowledge like, yeah, I’m the best. But I honestly don’t want to issue with anybody. You have to be the Charles Barkley of this. I know I was good, but I also got I mean, I got no rings, so I respect him for doing it. And I’m not a fan of the take the people just calling him out his name and saying he’s a week personally that’s going to look. That takes a look bad like five years when cold steel steady in his career doing chilling. Yeah. And killing it because everybody’s trying to make it seem like he just. It’s over for him. I think there’s anything you can really do in hip hop to be completely canceled.

Fresh Knight So yeah.

Confucius Jones I mean, people still support our killer.

Fresh Knight So I mean, people still rocking with Kanye. So.

Confucius Jones Exactly. They defeated Afrika Bambaataa, but man, I respect him for doing it. Like I said, the hip hop purist in me is disappointed. But as a grown man who yes, I do believe in protecting your peace and doing what you feel is best for yourself. I respect it.

Fresh Knight Like you said, I think Cole felt like if we keep going, it’s going to get disrespectful, which is the conversation that I was having with somebody before. But once again, I don’t think this taints his status in rap or his position. He’s still up there.

Confucius Jones Yeah, same. We talked about J. Cole apologizing to Kendrick for his diss record, Kendrick dissing him, and Jake responding, other side of that coin. Is Kendrick going at Drake. They’ve been going at it for a.

Fresh Knight While, for the better part of a decade.

Confucius Jones Yeah. They did. Exactly. That’s not going to go the same way.

Fresh Knight Jekyll, Drake.

Confucius Jones It is not Drake through other channels. Who said, I’m not doing that?

Fresh Knight What make you think? I think him and academia had a conversation today. What make you think that I would do that? You don’t know me very well. If you think that I’m going to get on stage and apologize.

Confucius Jones Drake is statistically the bigger artist than Cole and Kendrick. He’s Michael.

Fresh Knight Jackson.

Confucius Jones That’s why.

Fresh Knight In this argument, in this argue, in his argument, only in his argument.

Confucius Jones Kendrick said in the song Prince, I live my jack.

Fresh Knight Couldn’t get bath.

Fresh Knight No you’re good.

Confucius Jones Drake being number one statistically is one thing, but skills wise, legacy wise is another. I feel that Drake has to go at Kendrick and have a very meaningful, not successful, but very meaningful response in order to submit how good he really is. Because Drake and like we said before, his stat padding at this point.

Fresh Knight I definitely agree. Whatever response, whatever distract Drake makes, it has to be powerful.

Confucius Jones Well, he has to come out on top. Yeah. In terms of because like with J.-Z and NAS thing, I always look at that as like a Vietnam thing. If J. is like the United States, like he got out of it, but he didn’t get out of it with no w, he got out of it.

Fresh Knight I’ll say this when it comes to just rapping ability, just rapping I don’t think it’s. A far gap between Drake and Kendrick as people think it is. That’s my opinion. I don’t think it is. I think Kendrick, while a great rapper, I think he gets away with moreso how something is said, not exactly what is said. I think the whole animated voice is him explaining and putting emphasis on words when he raps and in his flow and in the cadence. I think that catches people and it’s kind of like a wow effect. He was like, oh my God, did you hear that verse? But when you just listen to the verses like, hey Drake, rap just as good, like just rapping. Yeah. Drake raps just as good. Kendrick sells it more. Whatever Drake does. He has to come out on top of that thing.

Confucius Jones He can at least get by, but it’s not looking like he’s getting beat down. So the closest beef I can think over the top of my head is probably T.I., Ludacris, which a lot of people don’t remember because it didn’t get too bad, but they were watching each other on a couple songs.

Fresh Knight They found.

Fresh Knight Though.

Confucius Jones It true, but how that beef went, they both got out of it in a way, but still going to have to be successful. I don’t see Drake blowing Kendrick out the water. I know Drake has to be able to just say, I’ve still got out there with him and y’all broke it up, because even with the Pusha T thing, to me that’s a loss for him.

Fresh Knight To me, he was ill. I thought he did well in it. I don’t think push it just completely disappeared though.

Confucius Jones Cause that last song, it got him.

Fresh Knight Out of it. Like I saw somebody say it and I went back and listen to Storia Adeno from Pusha T o without the shock effect of you are hiding a child.

Confucius Jones What’s funny is that people always go to that part, but that’s not the part I go to.

Fresh Knight That’s not the part that I go to.

Confucius Jones He goes to what he said at 40 was gonna see.

Fresh Knight Yo. The whole tick, tick, tick in your brand is sick, sick, sick and in like that was that was that’s what I would do. That was the detrimental part. But what was it? Duppy freestyle dope before that was a pretty good it is just Drake started taking aim also at somebody else instead of the intended target.

Confucius Jones I don’t think Drake had the understanding that once you start bringing people, you know, wives and kids into stuff, that’s when the gloves really come off.

Fresh Knight Yeah. And I think in Duppy, when he started taking shots at Kanye, I think that’s when everybody was like, oh, well, man, like you clearly got an issue with his what pushes man’s. And you don’t really want to do this with Pusha.

Confucius Jones But but that’s what I’m saying. Drake has to now if he can get out of Kendrick, either with a draw or an uncontested win, that’ll kind of help ease the loss to push it.

Fresh Knight T yeah.

Confucius Jones Definitely. Granted he still throw shots pushed.

Fresh Knight You know they both they both.

Confucius Jones Yeah they do but but if he wants to become the next Hove because everybody said hope got out. You know you never lost better than NAS. What kind of withdraw.

Fresh Knight yeah.

Confucius Jones And I wasn’t a fan of him going at Harry Belafonte.

Fresh Knight That was just I think outspoken on that on his show. But it was just like, nah, bro.

Confucius Jones You could like.

Fresh Knight This, ain’t this like, this, ain’t this.

Confucius Jones Ain’t it, this ain’t it. So he has to do something to show that he can compete.

Fresh Knight He got to come out with a strong right hook or uppercut. He has to.

Confucius Jones Play. He has played a long game with Kendrick because okay, I’ll give you a football analogy real quick. If you’re playing a team that, you know, scores quick, you got to keep that quarterback off the field, which mean you got to keep that ball as long as you can. True. Because you’re not going to beat him on. It’s kind of like when people say about Tom, Brady said. Long as they’re on the field, they have a chance to win. So we just got to keep him out for you. Just run the clock out, bro, because the more time you give Kendrick, it’s not going to go the way you think it is. And Drake’s really good for that first punch.

Fresh Knight That analogy works well. I’m with you on it. I agree with it. I just like you said, I think he has to come out on top. Unlike Jake Cole, him apologizing doesn’t solidify. This doesn’t I don’t think it hurts his daddy. But if Drake comes out with a loss to Kendrick, if the consensus in the people in the community says, nah, he lost that one, and now you in the community says you lost that one and you lost to Pusha. Yeah, bro. You kind of get knocked down a P, you get taken down a pig. So you got to come out with a W, you got to be to USA versus Vietnam. You got to come out with a W, bruh. Yeah I ever been that win is you kind of come out with.

Confucius Jones It I think like I said Drake has calculated he’s going to play because I do believe that he’s kind of watching to see what Kendrick is doing, because in Drake’s body cam be like, I’m not going to give him a full song because he didn’t. He didn’t match me. I went in a verse.

Fresh Knight Accident at the beginning.

Confucius Jones I think the Drake and Future thing is more interesting, but we’ll talk more on that another time. Yeah, yeah.

Fresh Knight We’re taking a quick break. Be right back.

Confucius Jones Hip hop time.

Fresh Knight Yeah.

Confucius Jones Back to bed. Gotcha. Side note. Do you think any two people in rap beef hate each other? More than 50 cent in jail?

Fresh Knight Probably Nicki and Cardi.

Confucius Jones Not they. 50 GI rumors.

Fresh Knight I mean, they are still going and 50 still kind of exit on and it. Whenever Jairo says anything.

Confucius Jones I don’t like, I think I maybe at 1520 years Cardi Nicki do some like oh you know we’re past or whatever but 50 cent gyro never be friends. It’s just never gonna happen.

Fresh Knight I see. Yeah. I don’t think they ever going to be friends. They were. They were never. They were never friends. What?

Confucius Jones I just said just. It’s just too personal. But, who want to go first? You want to go first?

Fresh Knight Me, I go first. All right, I’ll go first. Fat Joe, fat Joe, one quarter.

Confucius Jones Jenna.

Fresh Knight One quarter. Dina. Fat Joe’s a big sneakerhead, right? He’s big in the sneaker. He got.

Confucius Jones The drum.

Fresh Knight Shoes. Yeah. I mean, we’re not gonna speak about that. You know, I don’t.

Confucius Jones Speak as a collector. I had to get it.

Fresh Knight No. You did. I know you did not. No, you did not. That wasn’t fair. You do not have to get. But he’s a sneaker head. He’s into the sneakers. He. I remember on cribs, he showed all of these unworn Air Force ones that had nobody else had he saying he just got the tear squat. If was one last year from Nike shout out to them. So apparently Fat Joe was so into sneakers. Mike Bibby choked him.

Fresh Knight What?

Confucius Jones How tall is Mike Bibby and how tall is fat?

Fresh Knight I would ask, how tall is Fat Joe? I think Mike Bibby is over six feet, maybe 626162.

Confucius Jones I’m on the case.

Fresh Knight Fat Joe says.

Confucius Jones Six two. Yeah.

Fresh Knight Fat Joe says that he’s friends with Mike baby. And one day Mike baby.

Confucius Jones Willie.

Fresh Knight That he was my baby invited him over to his house, after he retired. This was after Mike baby retired, invited them over to his house. And Mike baby was like, I know you in sneakers, so I’m gonna take you into my sneaker room. And he was like, you can pick your five to you. He was like. And Joe was like, my baby. Say like, yo, you can pick whatever you want off the wall and it’s yours. And Joe was like, yo, this is Mike Bibby. You know, he was on Nike, he was Team Jordan. He got, he got he got shoes in there that nobody else has like Jordan and colorways that nobody else has. And he was like, I’ll start going and just grabbing all the stuff he was wearing when he was with the Kings, and he said, Mike, baby, look at him like, yo, yo, what are you doing man? He Joe said. Mike Bibby equated it to he was like, yo, you got gold and platinum records, right? He was like, Joe was like, yeah, no. He was like, how would you like to go in your house and start grabbing yo records off the wall, man, that you went like that. So Joe was like, I mean, I went like this. We say my Ben chunk to make him team up against the wall and was like, you can’t take all of those, man. You can’t take all those shoes. But Joe said he put something back and he took like two pair in that one.

Confucius Jones Thing bad, right.

Fresh Knight Guys? Like baby said he, his hand was around his neck, but he did not choke him. He didn’t squeeze and he wasn’t trying to hurt him. He’s like, it’s me. I’m professional athlete. If I would have been choking Fat Joe Fed Joe might not be.

Fresh Knight Here, bro.

Confucius Jones Oh, I you would talk about that gangster stuff. You get him I get like baby.

Fresh Knight He said he didn’t choke. He said his head was just around his neck. I was like, Mike, baby, that sound like you choked?

Confucius Jones Fat Joe was 510. How tall are you?

Fresh Knight Five. Seven.

Confucius Jones Okay. Hey, you big and short, I guess.

Fresh Knight Why did I let other people get this trick?

Confucius Jones Big and big. It at least six one, 510.

Fresh Knight Now that’s the camera. Add an extra height today.

Confucius Jones Today’s top dollar signs. Birthday.

Fresh Knight Yes, it is.

Confucius Jones 42 years old. Tyrone William Griffin Jr, born LA. His father, in fact, is a member of the band Lakeside.

Fresh Knight Really? Yeah.

Fresh Knight Oh, I’ve never heard him mention it. Why would he have mentioned it?

Confucius Jones I feel like I’ve heard him mention that.

Fresh Knight Maybe he has and I just wouldn’t pay attention.

Confucius Jones Granted, there’s a lot of people in Lakeside, but. Yes. Yeah. So that’s kind of where he got his musical.

Fresh Knight All the way, like.

Confucius Jones Yeah, it’s kind of where he got his musical prowess from him. His brother I know tried outside of the game, I don’t know, his brother was in the rival gang. DeLaSalle. Blood brothers group of people.

Fresh Knight La man, I.

Confucius Jones Get that in.

Fresh Knight A gang game. And his brother.

Fresh Knight I thought.

Confucius Jones Gave his brother. But blood.

Fresh Knight They won.

Fresh Knight I think his brother was a crib man. I don’t know, man.

Confucius Jones But yeah, that’s my first fact.

Fresh Knight I have a tie down fan effect as well. In celebration of his 42nd birthday. Older than that, I thought he was kind of younger than that, to be honest with you, Todd Allison was, before going solo, was once in a group called the LA movement, him and various other artists. I looked up the group and could not find any information about the LA movement. All it came up was a group called the movement out of South Carolina, and I knew that wasn’t him. I don’t know, it seemed like people who go on to have successful solo careers always started off in a group. Ty Dolla Sign Bobby Valentino was millions out of Vegas. Neo.

Confucius Jones Yeah, because you always it’s easy to be in a group and I’d be solo. So my second fact is Shante Harris, aka the Brat, is celebrating her birthday tomorrow. She’ll be 50 years old. She is the first female rapper to ever go platinum.

Fresh Knight As she is.

Confucius Jones With her debut album, electrified in 1994.

Fresh Knight That I did not. Do the effect. After that, I.

Fresh Knight Had it written down.

Fresh Knight I had it ready to go.

Confucius Jones I wondered, I said, why do we have to run across? But if I were to follow cam, she sounded too much like Snoop Dogg in enough for merely the satisfaction of God.

Fresh Knight When I first heard sanctified, I thought it was somebody I thought they were trying to emulate. Snoop, like her and Jermaine. I thought they were trying to wear a dress.

Confucius Jones The hair.

Fresh Knight Yeah. And then, like, Jermaine didn’t help me with having braids at the time. And then he had the little mustache and the goat. I thought it was just. I thought a.

Confucius Jones Producer from Atlanta finds a girl from Chicago, makes a rap like a rapper from.

Fresh Knight Long Beach, California. Interesting.

Fresh Knight Very interesting.

Fresh Knight But, and I think it’s Jermaine said, I said that before they, like Snoop was hot. So like, he was trying the capital of the West Coast Sound with the brat. But, my third and final fact is Beanie Siegel was on. I don’t know what podcast. Well, people seem to do these mysterious unknown podcast these days.

Confucius Jones Yeah, I know right.

Fresh Knight But mainly Siegel said that, while at Rockefeller, J.-Z, when he would record his albums, I always wore Biggie Smalls is original Jesus piece chain.

Confucius Jones This is why we don’t tell each other facts.

Fresh Knight Yeah, I thought that was interesting to know. One, I want to know where J. got to be. And you got the chain. Did you get it from his mother? Did you give it to him? Like who gave it to him? To Kim? Give it to. Yes, I went there. I who gave him chain, but I thought that was cool to record with biggie. Jesus feeds on. Which makes me think he was biggie. Just was J just walking around with Biggie’s Jesus P, though? Did he only put it on just a record? But yeah.

Fresh Knight Yeah.

Confucius Jones Well there you go. Yeah, I was gonna say that. Damn.

Fresh Knight I’m going to lead off with that one.

Confucius Jones But it is what it is. Tupac secured fame with two bucks. Gore of course, is rap name is his real name.

Fresh Knight Actually, yes.

Confucius Jones His first rap name was MC in New York, considering he is one of the legends of the West Coast. Tupac was a rap names emcee in New York because he’s not from California.

Fresh Knight He’s born in New.

Confucius Jones York, he born New York there, but he has risen with him since the.

Fresh Knight Man went to school day went, which is he went to to perform an Oscar with they fame.

Confucius Jones Exactly. So it’s just it’s ironic that the guy that was one of the main players in the East Coast, West Coast Beef originally was emcee New.

Fresh Knight York, which, though I always found interesting, they, like you said, he was one of the main one of the two main figureheads in the East Coast West Coast Beef that most New York rappers had a relationship with him, and he did not hate it, just certain people from New York. He did not like Mobb Deep, NAS, biggie, J., J..

Confucius Jones Basically anybody else knew about big it or not. Yeah, yeah. Anybody that was like, hey, big ain’t bad. He’s like, you get it too?

Fresh Knight So I always found out everybody has a Tupac story from New York.

Confucius Jones Yeah. No you’re right. He was deeply involved in New York before that first shooting at quad in 94. And he was. Yeah, a lot of his associates and friends were from New York. But once that shooting happened and he went to death row, he became California’s, you know.

Fresh Knight King of king of Kelly.

Confucius Jones So a lot of people California, I say that’ll be done. It feel away that he’s put on such a pedestal in California, like you say from here.

Fresh Knight Really? Yeah. I’ve.

Confucius Jones I watched blade. 11 million people on it and he’s cool. But yeah you from you’re like, yeah. And you know, people like when they’ve been in one place all their life, they don’t.

Fresh Knight I mean, he’s spent an ample amount of time there though.

Confucius Jones And also there’s an argument that the West Coast wouldn’t be the powerhouse here, Bob wise, had he not gone out there.

Fresh Knight So he got his comeuppance. Music was on the West Coast. So, I mean, I get it, I get it, I get it, man.

Confucius Jones Unpopular opinion time with fresh himself.

Fresh Knight All right. With all the J. Cole talk, I recently started having this doubt about going back to our conversation we have before about where does hip hop go from here, the culture. One thing I said to myself I want to start doing is quit referring to the music as hip hop and just call it rap, because rap is what you do in hip hop. It’s the overarching culture of rap is the rap is the genre. The genre is not hip hop. Although yes, I know you read it and buy stuff and you go look in shopping albums it says hip hop, rap or hip hop R&B. The genre is rap, hip hop is the culture. But I get why that’s I get why hip hop is there and include it in the genre. But. I don’t know. The Jake Cody got me apology and the discourse around he got me back thinking hip hop doesn’t need to be elevated anymore. And when I say that, what I mean is hip hop has come a long way from 1973. As if we’re starting hip hop in 1973.

Confucius Jones We are.

Fresh Knight There have been some debates.

Confucius Jones And we’re not.

Fresh Knight Doing it.

Confucius Jones 73.

Fresh Knight But hip hop has come a long way in just 50 years, probably the youngest musical genre out ever. Like currently right now, like 50 years. Is it really that long of a time? But in 50 years, the culture of hip hop has accomplished so much. And I think for the longest time, everybody within hip hop has wanted hip hop to be where it is right now, be the number one genre, get the recognition crossover, be the voice of a generation. And is there. I think the hip hop is probably the voice of three generations. I would say is was Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, and whatever the generation is after Gen X, was that like Gen Alpha? I don’t I don’t care, make stuff. I think they just make it make.

Confucius Jones Stuff up with this.

Fresh Knight But, I just don’t think that the fight needs to be as heavy to continue to push hip hop to this super stratosphere when it’s there. This year in the Summer Olympics will be the first year that breakdancing is an Olympic sport. Breakdancing is an Olympic sport. How far do we want to go? Like how how much farther can we go without things being kind of redundant? Like we will you do something in somebody’s hip hop will get to a place where I think is already in a place where somebody does something like now. Well, that’s been done for so long. So did that back in the 80s. Also did that in 95, like as this has done before, like topics in the music don’t really change much. Breakdancing becomes an Olympic sport officially this year. Like how it’s grown so far and gotten so big to the point to where people feel like, you know, the culture has been sold off. We don’t own anything we’ve got. It’s gotten that big. It makes money. Busta Rhymes once said, hip hop is the only thing that makes people money who don’t even like, like people who don’t care or don’t like hip hop, like making money off of. We gotta make that hip hop and McDonald’s commercials. People look at break into Electric Boogaloo, you can tell by the name is Devil’s Like. And that’s kind of when hip hop crossed over and kind of sold out. And the first one is a classic. That second one was goofy.

Fresh Knight The second one.

Fresh Knight Was goofy, man. But I just think instead of continuing to try to push hip hop to the highest stratosphere, like start preserving the culture. I feel like you have generations coming. I feel like Gen Z and like Gen Alpha are like now. The generations who don’t know or understand that hip hop is a culture. It’s not just music. When I think of hip hop, they only think about the music. They don’t think about the other pillars in it or care. And I think that’s an issue that people jump into it or want to be a part of. We don’t care about the culture. Then you get people like a six, nine or other artists who just want to be in it for clout. But now, I mean, you got to care about the graffiti or street art. You got to care about the b boys and be girls, or just the dances that are birth within hip hop you gotta care about. You have to care about the DJ. Hip hop will be nothing without the DJ. I think more artists should care about the craft of emceeing. Like everybody. Hooting hollow is about the decrease, the decline in rapping and hip hop, but can never give a specific area where the decline and that’s been debunked.

Confucius Jones Oh god.

Fresh Knight That has finally been debunked.

Confucius Jones But like the 24 killed that argument.

Fresh Knight People who not like holler about music. Nobody want to hear Cole and all that rapping, but when you look at it, Cole and Kendrick or two of the highest selling artists, I’m like, Big Sean is a high selling artist. No matter how you feel about it. He’s a high selling artist and he raps pretty well and I think he cares about the craft. No matter how you feel about Drake. When a boy wants to rap, he raps, and we don’t have to talk about his sales because you just can’t get away from the game. But like. Looking at like a Freddie Gibbs. I think people really like Freddie Gibbs. Not because all the antics outside of music, God, Freddie quit doing stuff, but I think they like Freddie because of the music and his ability to rap. Well, MF doom is held to a high regard, although I will say I didn’t think MF doom was the best rapper.

Confucius Jones I think the mysterious thing kind of bad.

Fresh Knight I think that carried him over a lot. I’m not saying MF doom couldn’t rap, so don’t come for me. Hip hop purist. I’m not saying he couldn’t rap, I’m just saying stacked up against some other people. He won the best. I’m just. I’ll just say that I. I’m sorry. I don’t think he was better than Raekwon. Yes. That’s my that’s. Yes, that’s my take. My hat take if that’s a hot take. But I just think hip hop doesn’t need to be just I don’t think we still need to be fighting for a spot for a seat at the table. We got the seat at the table. We got several seats at the table.

Confucius Jones We bought the table.

Fresh Knight We all. And at this point, we are the table. Everybody wants a piece of rap music. Everybody wants a piece of hip hop for whatever it may be like. Katy Perry didn’t work with three rap artists. You had a song with Kanye West, juicy J and a migos, which.

Confucius Jones Was the worst song.

Fresh Knight Ever.

Fresh Knight It was when the one with the Migos. Yeah, I still never heard the song.

Confucius Jones Don’t ever. You still never felt sound so bad.

Fresh Knight I like the one with Kanye and Juicy J.-Z. Yeah, I like those two, but like. But that’s my point. Like, we on the table everybody wants to do. You got country artists and drums in songs like we we, we are the Table. We are the prevailing culture. Hip hop is now just pop culture is just now hip hop. Like most of the things that happen in pop culture, they correlate to hip hop. Like I just I think we should focus more on preserving the culture. Then trying to steal a fight or act as if we need a seat at the table. Because, like me, I refuse to just say we are the table. We own it. We built it.

Confucius Jones Yeah.

Fresh Knight That’s my unpopular opinion.

Confucius Jones I agree with most of that, except for it doesn’t need to be elevated anymore. Only because as a fan of the culture, I can. I want to keep seeing it go to places I hadn’t been, and also because with it being new.

Fresh Knight Where can it go?

Confucius Jones I mean, it has to. It has to get to a place like rock and roll where it sees an artist in, you know, their 50s and 60s are still performing and doing well, which it seems like it’s going in there.

Fresh Knight And I have.

Confucius Jones No bias, but I’m saying most art most people bought, it’s not that old. They’re not.

Fresh Knight Well, this is true because Brad is just now turning.

Confucius Jones 50 and J.-Z is in his 50s. So it’s not. And I mean, like, you know, you have the Mick Jagger of the world, the Keith Richards, the Paul McCartney and that are still because of their existence and still participation in the rock and roll culture, keeps rock and roll at that level of legacy. Right. And so I want rap to get to that place and also the maturity aspect of it, because sometimes I listen to old records and I’m I mean, granted, Snoop Dogg might not, you know, feel away about it, but I’m like very misogynistic.

Fresh Knight oh man.

Confucius Jones So to see rappers grow up and get to that place of being grown, being married, having kids, not being, you know, misogynist, misogynistic, misogynistic at all. I want to see it elevate to that point. But I do agree that it should be preserved as well, too. I think we should have a hip hop hall of Fame.

Fresh Knight I think it’s long overdue at this point.

Confucius Jones But I just want to elevate just for the just for the love of it. I can’t tell you fully where I want to go outside of what I just named, but like, I would love everybody to sell 10 million copies. That ain’t gonna happen now. But, and I, we said before, the women are really taking it to another level, but yeah, I want to see that elevate more. But where that is outside where I said I don’t know.

Fresh Knight Oh yeah, I mean I get I guess my thing is like I just ask like, where else can it be taken? It’s been hip hop based shows. It’s been hip hop moves and like, it’s crossed over. Like I said, it’s been in McDonald’s commercials, has been in Taco Bell commercials, is everywhere. People who don’t like. We had Miley Cyrus twerking and wearing Jordan gear, working with juicy J and Mike Will and Justin Bieber made a fire album with some great hip hop producers and artists were like, where else? I guess the question is just where else can we take hip hop Grammys? Once again, Grammy’s looking at you. Grammys, not at least for the like, at least the bare minimum heir best rap album. It is a category that most people want to see who won. Y’all can air just that category. Yeah, like I don’t understand why you can’t air that. Can’t take another category. Take Best New artist out in air that don’t really care who won best new artist man.

Confucius Jones No, they not taking that out. Let’s do a story.

Fresh Knight Of what you. Yeah, that’s my unpopular opinion, man. And now let’s get some news. Here is Confucius reads the news.

Confucius Jones News, news, news. It’s always interesting, sometimes fun, sometimes sad. But at least try to make it something appealing. Let’s. I’m just gonna get right to it. OJ Simpson is dead. There are some people who are happy. I feel like he got to come up. And some people probably feel like, oh, you know, it’s a tragedy. I say this, I’m not on the side of tragedy.

Fresh Knight I’m just on the side of condolences.

Confucius Jones I mean, yeah, he had a family.

Fresh Knight Yeah. Just condolences.

Confucius Jones Not the one he killed, but he had the family.

Fresh Knight Fuck, no.

Confucius Jones Look, I know, yeah, I know he’s found not guilty. Look, it’s been said before that OJ trial was a direct correlation to the Rodney King verdict. So that’s why, you know, Black people, like, we got to get something out of here.

Fresh Knight But they wanted books.

Confucius Jones It was book.

Fresh Knight The book that he wrote with the chapter.

Confucius Jones Right. I don’t wanna.

Fresh Knight Hear it, but I did it the way we do it. It didn’t explain exactly how it happened.

Confucius Jones I get mad, whatever mad OJ did, that man.

Fresh Knight That’s what I’m saying, he explained again.

Confucius Jones I’m saying no. What I’m saying is that they would if there’s a documentary that came out that basically said that the reason why so many people, especially in California, yeah, rooting for OJ is because the year prior to their trial with the Rodney King, yeah, they’re like, we want something, we want to witness something.

Fresh Knight I think they put that in every L.A. document documentary about the riot.

Confucius Jones So but yeah, OJ Simpson did. It was rumors that he was in hospice care because he was sick. But he tried to pop up in February. Is there anything wrong with me?

Fresh Knight Hospice. Hospice. I remember you and you in hospice. This goes you right around.

Confucius Jones Because they say you want to make God laugh. Tell them about your plan.

Fresh Knight Keep playing.

Confucius Jones God save you. Thank you. Not sick. Watch this. So, yeah. You know this Simpson’s gone. He was a amazing football player.

Fresh Knight The juice is no longer loose.

Confucius Jones Clearly a trash human being. And every reason I say that with so much confidence. Because, yes, OJ Simpson did not like Black people until he went to trial. Granted, his first wife, is Black, but still, OJ made it a point to not be on the side of Black people.

Fresh Knight So I’m not Black. I’m O.J..

Confucius Jones There’s a J.-Z line for.

Fresh Knight Everything. Okay. I really have to be really.

Confucius Jones Really loud for everything, man. The eclipse was Monday. Here in Austin. There was supposed to be a Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet County, but it got canceled. It was canceled, actually, the day before the festival organizers, which is Disco Presents, told KXAN you news that free water was available at ten stations around the venue, but it was sad to hear that some guests may have a kind of challenge to locating water clean, portable toilets. It also respond to complaints about campsites and venue layout. So the event ended up happening, but not so much canceled. But they kind of scaled back a lot of it. I’ll say this it doesn’t surprise me one, because anything that’s festival is very hard to put together. And two, I’m not 100% sure having an event where people need to look at the ground when something’s going up in the sky is the best idea. But I mean we did something UK Texas on Monday so it into working out.

Fresh Knight It wasn’t the festival.

Fresh Knight Yeah true. It’s very true.

Confucius Jones But they try to keep it going. But he likes you know severe weather. So it is what you that. Hey it was with my windows ass the other day. Let’s head over to Arizona a place that is purple. But when it comes to locals, likes to go back to the Civil War before they were state abortions are completely banned in Arizona, except in cases where it’s necessary to save a life. The law which was enacted can be traced as early as 1864 before Arizona State, and it was codified in 1901. It carries a prison sentence of 2 to 5 years for abortion providers, and it puts Arizona among the states with the strictest abortion laws in the country, alongside Alabama, Mississippi and, of course, Texas.

Fresh Knight My brother, my brother, my brother. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You say the law was what, before the Civil War.

Confucius Jones It was implemented as 1864, and it was codified in 1901.

Fresh Knight So right after the Civil War.

Confucius Jones When Civil war ended, 1865.

Fresh Knight In Texas.

Fresh Knight It takes no.

Confucius Jones No energy, but not in Texas it didn’t, but nationwide. And, ma’am, what was going on when that law went into effect?

Fresh Knight Hey, yo. Hey. Arizona. Arizona, Arizona, Congress. Y’all gotta look at your book.

Confucius Jones And speaking in a news conference after the court’s decision was published, Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayes vowed no woman a doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law. As long as I am attorney general, not by me, nor by any county attorney serving in our state, not on my watch. How do you enforce a law or implement a law that not only was around before you were a state, but also before women could even vote? That’s what’s so backwards to me. Republicans have not yet learned that the abortion issue is a huge lose issue for them. Trump tried to jump out there and say that he supports abortion as being states rights, but he that’s him trying to play the fence about it because he knows damn well when it goes back to the States, it’s going to be it’s going to these type of laws get pushed through. So I mean, Chad y’all Arizona. If y’all in purple now y’all going to be blue as hell come November. Because yeah, if there’s one policy in this country that most people agree on is abortion rights. Yeah I know there’s a. Large segment of people that are pro-life, but there are more people that are pro-choice. So y’all have fun with that. Arizona. Y’all already? I was smooth read it until Trump jumped out there talking about McCain and y’all became purple.

Fresh Knight That’s just crazy. They got a lot. I mean, Texas got some laws on the books that.

Confucius Jones Don’t make any.

Fresh Knight Sense. They don’t make any sense. Like, you know, it’s illegal to have sex in, the state of Texas in any position other than missionary. Still on the books. Still on the books here. This is.

Confucius Jones Like the bracelet, you.

Fresh Knight Know. I know ratified is. Man. What are y’all doing? Arizona ratify that, bro.

Confucius Jones That’s why that’s.

Fresh Knight 1864.

Confucius Jones I’m mad. That’s the law you were to.

Fresh Knight I’m the one that popped into my head when.

Confucius Jones It did.

Fresh Knight Abortions. That is it seem like a correlate is correlated in my mind.

Confucius Jones Speaking Republicans who never cease to entertain me. Going to see any it has. Conservatives revolted against GOP leadership and defeated a key vote on the floor Wednesday, the latest blow to speaker Mike Johnson. That comes after former President Donald Trump called on Republicans to kill a controversial surveillance law. Trump had urged House Republicans to reject a reauthorization of the law, known as Pfizer, ahead of the key procedural vote on Wednesday, adding to headaches with GOP leaders who have struggled to build support for the legislation but were still attempting to forge ahead and advance the bill. Basically, they shut it down because, like I said, Trump said something of truth social analysis on Truth Social was kill Pfizer and they shut it down because Trump’s approach to anything legislative wise is to not give let anything go through to give Democrats the win. Mike Johnson is just he’s such a scapegoat. I was he was on the news the other day talking about how Marjorie Taylor to talk to him anymore because she, she basically voted to get him out of there, just like she did Kevin McCarthy. And so the tally for the vote was 193 to 228, with 90 Republicans bucking House GOP leadership and voting with Democrats to sink to procedural vote and take down a rule to govern debate on the reauthorization bill, as well as several other bills. Boy, this cluster, if it’s going on Republicans, it’s just hilarious because they can’t get anything through. What’s again? Y’all have fun in November. I know it’s a lot going on, but it’s you gotta be able to legislate to get some type of thing going.

Fresh Knight I mean, yes.

Confucius Jones But let’s go to Democrats.

Fresh Knight Let’s go.

Confucius Jones Who are currently in the presidential seat, of course, at the white House. US President Joe Biden believes that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is making a mistake in his handling of Gaza. Boy, boy, boy, let me tell you how water is wet. Okay, so in an interview, he said, I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach. I don’t agree with one of Burger’s approach to not grilling my onions when I ask for it. When there is a humanitarian crisis going on because we’re aiding a country in a war, providing them most of the weapons. That is the approach is kind of escalating a little lightly there. Yeah. Israel just last week, they killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, and Biden said it was outrageous how the organization vehicles have been hit by drones and taken out on the highway once again said a million times Israel has the right to defend itself. But it’s a lot going on over there that most people don’t agree with. I don’t think history is going to kindly on how the United States handled that.

Fresh Knight No it won’t.

Confucius Jones They saying that America is going to take more of a role in trying to call for a cease fire. They let Israel lead, but they don’t have confidence in Israel’s ability to get that cease fire done.

Fresh Knight I mean.

Confucius Jones I mean, it’s everything that America has said, especially in relation to Ukraine and Russia, about another country occupying territory didn’t belong to them, indiscriminately killing people they shouldn’t be killing. You’re not having the same energy when it comes to Israel, so you can’t have it both ways there. And let me say this to people out there who don’t understand why we support for so much that is our strongest ally in the Middle East. Nobody in the Middle East likes us is episodic because we, we borrowed from. I don’t think they halfway like us.

Fresh Knight I don’t think they do.

Confucius Jones But Israel’s the one place they’re strategically that has our backs. We give them most of their weapons. But what it’s looking like over time is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is kind of using this war in the Middle East to kind of advance his own aspirations, of course. And Biden. Yeah, you need to get you need to get together. That’s, I think, coming out saying that he feels like he’s hurting his, his his view with voters. Oh, you’re damn right it is.

Fresh Knight You think?

Confucius Jones You know, we famously fought the Nazis and helped bring down World War two. I mean, that never mind. That’s confused. Read the news. Not even going to do it. Not even going to do it.

Fresh Knight Well.

Confucius Jones Go watch Pearl Harbor by Michael Bay’s whole movie.

Fresh Knight Too long.

Confucius Jones This episode of The Breaks podcast is a production of KUTX 98.9, The Austin Music Experience. You can listen to the Breaks radio show every Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.. This podcast is produced by Confucius Jones,  Fresh Knight and Elizabeth McQueen with editing help from Jack Anderson. Additional production help provided by Zahra Crim. You can  follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We are at TheBreaksKUTX and you can find more episodes at KUTX forward slash  The Breaks. Our theme song is by Austin artist Deezie Brown.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.