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Tough calls all around when it comes to ranking these heavyweights! And is radio dead? Maybe just the commercial kind…Hear that plus Hip-Hop Facts and the latest news in this episode.
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 Like I’ve said, the beginning of the show, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, friend of the show about producers because he’s a producer. And so we were trying to figure out, what does Metro Boomin fall on the producer list, right? And as the conversation went on, Metro Broomin fell further and further down. Because you do realize how many hip hop producers there are until you start talking about it.
Fresh Knight Oh, no, I realize.
Confucius Jones You know, trust me, you think you do and you start asking. You start throwing out names like, wait, I’ve got the person producer I thought I brought like Bangladesh and you’re like, oh, that’s it, you don’t. Yes. It’s a long list. It lists at least 200. But I started focusing on my Mount Rushmore. I told him my Mount Rushmore is Dre, Jermaine Dupri for real, and Timbaland. But the conversation went on. I was like.
Fresh Knight You said Dre, Jermaine Dupri.
Confucius Jones For real? Yeah. As the conversation went on and I started laying out my criteria for what I think makes it great, just not hip hop, just producer in general. Because my one was Dr Dre about like the Jermaine Dupri. He fits it more than Dre does in one category. Long term relevancy. Because in my opinion, if you argue that Dre is the greatest, which I’m not going to argue against. If the argument is that he’s the greatest because he created a genre of music, subgenre of hip hop, G-funk and has, you know, basically shifted power away from the East Coast. Why does Jermaine not get that same? Because he did the exact same thing.
Fresh Knight He’s from the South.
Confucius Jones Yeah. He’s also more involved in music more recently than Doctor Dre, because if you look at Drake’s production credits, the last album that he contributed to that was actually big was Alicia Keys Girl on Fire album, almost 2013. Jermaine Dupri credits are way more recent than that.
Fresh Knight Way more.
Confucius Jones So. Is it fair to say that Jermaine Dupri should be number one over Doctor Dre? Now take your southern bias out of it. Which is hard for me to do because I have a southern bias. When Scott Storage man first went in versus I was out, maybe for if I was.
Fresh Knight I’ll maybe first because I was listening watch and then saying, well, yeah, you kind of just played keys on it. Yeah. You get a production credit, but like you didn’t craft this beat. Mannie fresh crafted this yes.
Confucius Jones Got structure was in room with producers made first by himself and in one single in a closet.
Fresh Knight He was crafting the sound for an entire label. Like its very distinct sound.
Confucius Jones There was nobody else the case.
Fresh Knight Like they brought you in. Doctor Dre brought you in just like at keys. Like that to me, is like, yeah, it’s production, but like. That’s like saying you’re producer.
Confucius Jones Yeah, brought up that too, but Jermaine to me. It really depends.
Fresh Knight Taking my southern bias out of it. Yes. I would put Jermaine Dupri production wise over Doctor Dre. I just think. For the argument. Did you say? I think Jermaine has a more just long term relevancy. I know people are going to say, well, Dre did this and he did this, and he did this. What you talk about is not long term. His run was this year, but Jermaine is still actively. Actively touching the board. He’s actively working on music. Actively writing music. Actively in the studio with people producing music. Physically producing not just given direction, but physically. Physically. At the board. Engineering and creating the music. I think that accounts for a lot more than just Dre stamp and his name on and saying, oh yo, I got production like he’s working with Marcia Ambrose on this album that I believe is already out the greatest. It was just big hype when the clips came out that like, he was in the studio with her, but how much did he really produce? Because now Doctor Julie has kind of just been known for. Yeah, he there, but we don’t know that he has like actually produce something. Like you said, the last album he did was Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys.
Confucius Jones Yeah, that’s the last I hear production credit on. And the last album that Jermaine Dupri has production credit on was Ari Lennox’s Aid sick location. What? That was 1221.
Fresh Knight Because he was big on that. Yo, y’all R&B artists are working with these rap producers trying to create R&B, and that’s why it’s not sounding like the R&B people want to hear. He was very critical, like when Chloe Bailey released that single where Murda Beats and he was like, if she’s R&B, why is she working with him? No disrespect to murder beats, but if you are R&B, why not work with somebody that the label can craft an R&B record? And I tend to agree. I think that is will like Jermaine Mitch mega hits, man. I think that is like Jermaine has a wide range of hits from R&B, pop to rap. I’m not saying Dre don’t. I’m not saying doctor just does it just to me.
Confucius Jones Dre and Jermaine are interchangeable. It’s Jermaine.
Fresh Knight I wouldn’t argue that, Dre.
Confucius Jones And then you start getting everybody else and you know, if you can make this argument, you make you put them all in there too, because.
Fresh Knight You say Maluma.
Confucius Jones Yeah. People that, you know craft a sound, but Jermaine doesn’t have an in the club. He doesn’t have, nothing but a G thing. He doesn’t have a California love. And also Jermaine Dupri unfortunately doesn’t have the crossover hits. That may be, Doctor Dre will have.
Fresh Knight The rap crossover.
Deezie Brown Hit.
Confucius Jones No, I’m talking about genre. What I mean by that is.
Fresh Knight I need explanation because.
Confucius Jones In the club, right? You can go to Africa and play in the club. Yeah. I can’t think of what Jermaine Dupri song up top of my head that you could take. To a place of the fittest. Take in the gloom. Now I can think of Jermaine Dupri songs that I will travel, but I can’t think of one that probably is bigger than the club.
Fresh Knight Mariah Carey. We belong together. Always be my baby.
Confucius Jones You know I’ll be my baby daddy. Oh he did.
Fresh Knight He wrote it. He wrote on it.
Confucius Jones On the.
Fresh Knight Remix. He himself has said that he did. He did a massive pleasure to meet me. I know for a fact you did a Myspace for me.
Confucius Jones Yeah, he did do that one. Yeah.
Fresh Knight So that alone. That alone, I think. Yeah. You can take that. And you can tell the same places 50 cent go. Mariah Carey goes and tours overseas. That’s getting just as big of a response, if not.
Confucius Jones Because we belong together. A bigger song in the club sales wise?
Fresh Knight Maybe not.
Confucius Jones That’s kind of what I’m like. I’m.
Fresh Knight I’m I’m.
Confucius Jones Talking about, like, in the club. It is wanted to me the top ten most important hip hop song in the world.
Fresh Knight I won’t argue that.
Confucius Jones We belong together. It’s a it was a huge, huge song. But it’s not Mariah’s biggest song.
Fresh Knight No it’s not. But I’m. I’m saying you said 50 cent could play in the club in Africa. Mariah Carey can do the same thing. We belong together, and I think it gets just as big of a response, if not bigger, than in the club.
Confucius Jones I don’t think so. Man. It.
Fresh Knight Oh, you’re in the club outsold it. But I don’t think I don’t know that.
Confucius Jones Like I’m saying, We Belong Together a huge song.
Fresh Knight Okay, well let’s say Jermaine doesn’t have in the club. I still think you can put him above Dre without that. You say in the club G thing and what else? Those are two that Jermaine just doesn’t know.
Confucius Jones No, no, no, I just say he doesn’t have it in the club. And that’s why.
Fresh Knight I must be in the club sale.
Confucius Jones A lot.
Fresh Knight I forgot that a diamond single.
Confucius Jones Oh, it has to be to the boards.
Fresh Knight We can’t, we can’t it.
Confucius Jones Here it is. Ranked 448th and rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Fresh Knight 448th in the club.
Confucius Jones Yeah! Greatest songs of all time.
Fresh Knight Of day 448th. Now I would have at least broke top 200.
Confucius Jones Yes, diamond. It was certified diamond. This will last year.
Fresh Knight Okay, okay. I still put JD up there, man.
Confucius Jones JD can hang with Dre. Matter of fact, I would rather he can last longer than Dre. See, that’s my thing with Jermaine and reason why it’s he can have the number one spot is because while yes Dre has it in the club, that’s one that’s like saying the guy who produced return of the Mac deserves to be in the conversation, because returning to Mac was such a huge song, but that was just that one. Now Dre has more than just one, but let me, if they do A versus, nobody’s getting passing the clue.
Fresh Knight That’s not it. Yeah, this automatic point.
Confucius Jones And Jermaine Dupri knows that. But Brain Dupree has enough to back. Don’t say I can still keep up with this.
Fresh Knight You know what I think the knock on JD is? Thinking about this argument. You bring it up like the he doesn’t have in the club or G thing. None but a G thing. I think the knock against JT is his biggest song that he he has either written or produced or R&B. They are not the rap hits and I know people are going to throw out Criss Cross.
Confucius Jones We belong together to 4 million.
Fresh Knight And now we’re going to throw out Criss Cross. And I know we’re going to say Will Bow Wow, but people don’t look at those hits and those songs the same way they look at it in the club. Nobody’s playing an early Bow Wow song like that in the club.
Confucius Jones No.
Fresh Knight Nobody’s going to play Jump by Criss Cross. I’m just saying the club will miss the bus like that.
Confucius Jones One of those records you, if you made a capsule of what you think hip hop is.
Fresh Knight It definitely encapsulates a time period.
Confucius Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight But I think that’s the knock against Jermaine is that, you know, his rap hits are not as big as the things he did in R&B.
Confucius Jones Yeah, and I think too, unfortunately, he hasn’t put out a generational talent the same way. Drake is the credit for that as well. Like there’s no Snoop Dogg without Dre, there’s no are you gonna argue? No. 50 saying what I know Eminem, Jermaine Dupri. Unfortunately, while he has a decent resume in that regard, you can’t give him a rock. He didn’t discover Mariah Carey, he didn’t discover usher drew. So he’s discoveries that the bow was the escapes.
Fresh Knight I think the argument for that is we wouldn’t have the bow wow that we got without a Jermaine. We wouldn’t have the usher today.
Confucius Jones Oh god.
Fresh Knight No. Without Jermaine and making my way in the everything that follow, I think that is the argument for that. No. Oh wow. No, he did not discovered him. You wouldn’t get them and they wouldn’t be successful. And what I wouldn’t know about them without Jermaine sitting down and crafting Neil.
Confucius Jones And I can’t say that I’m right. I think where I’d be regardless.
Fresh Knight Buddy of Mariah is you still get I think you still get hits just as big, if not the same here without Jermaine.
Confucius Jones But usher, definitely there’s no usher because like I said before, Jermaine had a bit. He was fat ass girl, didn’t know what he was and.
Fresh Knight What he couldn’t sell. You couldn’t think in LA face was thinking about dropping him.
Confucius Jones We’ll see how that came about at first. Yeah, I do.
Fresh Knight But, that’s come with a mac. I remember that one team when he was team.
Confucius Jones I remember that.
Fresh Knight Helicopter pad.
Confucius Jones Yo.
Confucius Jones What a puff of jail. But. But, yeah. No, I, I think that’s what kind of hurts him, unfortunately. And like I said, it’s not really a fair comparison, because if you if everybody agrees that Quincy Jones is just the greatest producer of all time, which most attribute to his contributions to Michael, he didn’t make Michael Jackson like Jackson was Michael Jackson before.
Fresh Knight And after.
Confucius Jones But is where he be the global superstar at Quincy Jones? That slid in on in there for after a while in thriller.
Fresh Knight Probably.
Confucius Jones I don’t think so. Man, that was a perfect storm.
Fresh Knight Maybe. No no no no.
Fresh Knight I don’t think he will. I don’t I think.
Confucius Jones You did 50 million without Quincy.
Fresh Knight I don’t know that. And I don’t think he makes the albums that he made without Quincy. I’m not going to say that he is not nowhere near dangerous.
Confucius Jones That’s still.
Fresh Knight I’m not going to say he wouldn’t be Michael Jackson without Quincy. I don’t think we just don’t get an off the wall or thriller without Quincy. But bad wasn’t a bad album and neither was dangerous.
Confucius Jones They really.
Fresh Knight Weren’t. They weren’t bad albums. I know people like to try to crap on dangerous. Now y’all got to stop that. Yeah.
Confucius Jones Really good.
Fresh Knight But yeah, that was a perfect storm. Which I think is the same with Dre. Snoop. I think that was just the perfect storm.
Confucius Jones Same.
Fresh Knight Well, Snoop, to be honest with you, I don’t think we get Snoop without Dre at all.
Confucius Jones We don’t.
Fresh Knight Know. I don’t think like, without Warren G introducing Snoop to Dre, we don’t get that. There’s no Snoop is somewhere in lost in Eminem.
Confucius Jones If Dre doesn’t cosign it, you don’t get a 50 cent had he. So that’s that’s the thing with great. That kind of gets him over that hump is that he has created the careers of this huge artist, undeniable artist, to the point where people sometimes forget that Dre is involved in the beginning of that. But with that being said, who do you have? A number one, Jermaine, a doctor Drake as of right now.
Fresh Knight I’m gonna go with JD.
Confucius Jones Yeah, gonna go JD.
Fresh Knight And that is my southern bias. That is my. I think when you think of Jermaine Dupri, you have to think about everything else that goes into Jermaine Dupri, not just. The production and the songwriting. You have to account for that. This man is one of the people, if not the first person, to really wave the flag for the South and say, yo, yo, we were really here. And then you get an outcast and the organized noise and the Dungeon Family, they come up and Andre goes on stage at the Source Awards and say, the South got something to say? But Jermaine had been waving it. Yeah, he’d been waving the flag and been trying to get people to pay attention to the South.
Confucius Jones Yeah, he’s always been into dog eating, but, you know, sandwich man debris sticking with the production theme. So the Neptunes are currently in a legal battle.
Fresh Knight You know, that one’s kind of that. It’s kind of.
Confucius Jones You see who owns that? Yeah, that’s Chad Hugo and for real, Williams and the Neptunes.
Confucius Jones There’s no doubt.
Fresh Knight Shoutout Chad, man.
Confucius Jones They’ve known each other since high school and probably longer than that, I.
Fresh Knight Think longer than that.
Confucius Jones And they’ve been producing music together for decades now.
Fresh Knight Third three, three decades.
Confucius Jones Yeah, yeah, over probably longer if you count. Yeah. The 90s when they started 30 years. But Neptunes are widely regarded as some of the best produce in hip-hop.
Fresh Knight At one point. And, I’ll say that for hip hop fact, I’ll say that for hip hop.
Confucius Jones But another group who are also from the South, I’m gonna say that both Southern New.
Fresh Knight York, Memphis.
Confucius Jones North Memphis after making good music, three six Mafia, a lot of their songs, all the songs have been popping up recently.
Fresh Knight Look, man, look, man.
Confucius Jones What do you think is more influential?
Fresh Knight Three, six, 666 is way more influential. And I, I could argue this one on The Neptunes. Great. Yes, the Neptunes are a phenomenal production team, but if we are talking about influence, influence, it is three six Mafia.
Confucius Jones Three six.
Fresh Knight Oh my knob is still being sample repeatedly, multiple times a year to this day. To this day. Juicy J said. Man. He clears. I might get the number wrong, but I think he said he gets thousands of civil clearances requests a day for people wanting to clear something that three six Mafia D just a few years ago. I think during the pandemic, before we start talking about we brought up some who run it. That was a whole challenge. We had rappers freestyling over the beat like that went viral on TikTok, like three six Mafia. Like, are them why it’s taken so long for people to finally give them their credit is beyond me. Like that from Future and Metro Boomin and Kendrick. When that drop, the first people that were named about the beat weren’t riding Yo and Joe Cooley, who song it is. They went straight to three. Say like three say dude. It first looked at three six Mafia is right there man. Like yeah man. Most people hears a lot of the stuff they hear because of three six Mafia people rap with the juicy DJ cadence allotment in this time. In this day and age, like they are highly influential and they don’t always get the flowers that they deserve. And if we keeping it a B, they are the reason Memphis is poppin. Rap was rap was rap was. Memphis was always a hub for music, but rap wise they are the reason I know y’all going to tell me about it. MJG but y’all don’t listen to about it. MJG like they stop it, stop it y’all don’t. Don’t tell me you do. Y’all know when I got over there with Bad Boy, I wasn’t listening to coming out hard like that. Stop it.
Confucius Jones So on the page, who sampled three six Mafia has 24 pages. I’m the Neptunes have 20, man.
Fresh Knight Okay.
Confucius Jones This conversation, it’s kind of hard to have now because I feel like three six influence is just now starting to really catch on to the point where for those of us who are three six Mafia fans and also Neptune fans. It’s more delayed gratification with three six as opposed. That tunes to me. I’ve always kind of gotten their flowers and they kind of took off and their hat sound has been duplicated. There is a lot of mini me’s three six had them, but I unfortunately I think it got lost in it in the beginning. It got lost in the shuffle of, you know, the rise of sudden music. Right. So it’s interesting now to start seeing these things start coming back up because like you said, who run it has been sampled like G herbal name and Lucy Vertebrae did it back and head from a Cardi’s first only album was redone. That was huge song. Hell No Limit would call it in. G-Eazy was three six Mafia sample. So it’s like now it’s starting to come back around like, well, you know, three six was kind of influence people too. Y’all just didn’t know it.
Fresh Knight Big X I think big X got a song where he samples. I’m.
Confucius Jones Not he samples a lot. I’m not sure what.
Fresh Knight It’s sipping on, sir.
I would love to see his album, but.
Fresh Knight Boy.
Confucius Jones I remember talking about this. Well, what is this?
Fresh Knight It was clear in this. That’s what I was going like. Who is clear? Who’s paying for these clear labels?
Confucius Jones Have relationship with some good boy.
Fresh Knight Some. Well, he ain’t getting no money. I know them from.
Confucius Jones Something you haven’t. Sample. I ain’t seen nobody sample as much since puff in the 90s. But. I say this, the Neptunes to me, only more influential. Because their sound and music has crossed genres. They got their first and still kind of does that because you got to give them to Justin Timberlake. You got to throw up in things they did.
Fresh Knight Three six to Britney Spears. Yeah I was. I’ll get more into that. Into my unpopular opinion.
Confucius Jones Three six unfortunately didn’t start. They’ve really crossed over fully like that. They kind of did when they got that Oscar, but it didn’t feel they didn’t fill out any. Three six Mafia fans argue that once they got that time round, I got to ask. Their music started kind of dropping off.
Fresh Knight And that’s when they started doing La La La Land. They started doing all of that and it’s now it’s. Yeah, like you just.
Confucius Jones To sound like a foreman.
Fresh Knight They got to the reality show on MTV that didn’t seem.
Confucius Jones That that wasn’t that good.
Fresh Knight That it didn’t that didn’t seem odd. They seemed like they did it because MTV threw the money and the.
Confucius Jones Money at them. I would say the Neptunes are more influential. Just like I said, you know, I’m going to just say it from N.e.r.d to, you know, like I said, all the different cross-genre things they’ve done. I think they’ve been nominated for producer of the year, too.
Fresh Knight It’s quite possible.
Confucius Jones Three, six just they just need a Dua Lipa to sample one of these songs and just shoot it to the moon. And I’m a fan as well. But.
Fresh Knight I hear you, and that is hard to argue against all that the Neptunes have done, because they have crossed genres and they have done a lot. But also, this may just be me. I count the three six Mafia influence, even when it’s just one of them.
Confucius Jones I do too. Like I’m also counting Neptunes and it’s just for real.
Fresh Knight Katy Perry says, hey, I want juicy J to come over here and work on this song and be on it. I count that as three six. Like I count it because that’s fair. I like juicy J doing anything solo wise and just doing production himself or not.
Confucius Jones Is that fair though? Do you it on the album? Do you use.
Fresh Knight Count for real.
Confucius Jones Solo out there? But in hindsight, do we count, Big Boi feature that Outkast?
Fresh Knight No, because they don’t count it.
Confucius Jones I still don’t.
Confucius Jones Know don’t.
Fresh Knight Because he don’t count and neither does Andre. But I mean, we would Monte with it for real. And in that regard, I think with For Real is and I’ve looked at whenever Pharrell is either featured on a song or has written on a song. I think legally it has to say is Neptunes. But then when you look at the credits, it says.
Confucius Jones Look at the publishing companies Neptunes.
Fresh Knight Yeah. So it says Neptunes. So that automatically goes toward that. Even if Chad didn’t work on the song. Now, a lot of that stuff, Chad did work somewhere on the record. If for Rail Road on it for somebody or he did vocals for it’ll say like, Chad Hugo did this or he has the production credit as well. But once again, I think that’s probably more so legally. And like you say, their production company is The Neptunes. So Chad name probably has to be on there.
Confucius Jones That’s why they fight.
Fresh Knight This was a good one. I don’t know, I think I still give it to three. Say we don’t get crunk without three six Mafia. Yeah. You don’t, don’t get. We like. I’m not gonna say we don’t get a little John, but I saw that whole Lil John interview 2 a.m. talking about how he, like, got crunk from listening to their brains and all of that, which, yeah, you can say all of those records.
Confucius Jones Yeah. But that sound is.
Fresh Knight I was like, you could say all those were punk records, Lil John. But you also said that you were influenced in, like you were looking at, what, three, six Mafia was doing with the club up and out there in Memphis. So you can’t really just say, no, this is just punk records now. Now you can give them, give them that, give, give them that. We don’t get the crunk sound, we don’t get a Waka Flocka and all of that would out to the club and all of those type records from three six Mafia.
Confucius Jones You know.
Fresh Knight That. And I think that’s what hurts three six Mafia. Is that their sound kind of stay regional for the longest and well.
Confucius Jones That and you make a good point. They develop the sound that eventually becomes chronic. Right. But Lil John takes crunk to a bigger level. Three six doesn’t get the credit for that. Now, had there been a direct correlation it granted Lil John two and three six got along. They were in his video. They’ve done songs together, but it’s kind of one of those things where because they started it. What’s the old saying? Don’t, don’t be the first to create something because the person after you could perfect perfected. And that’s kind of a Lil John did and took it to the next level.
Fresh Knight And took it to a crossover of.
Confucius Jones Yeah. And so in a time when maybe had a little John come out and said, yeah, this sound I got from them, he kind of could have brought them, but he didn’t. And then three, six breaks up and.
Fresh Knight Yeah, we don’t really that was a moment where we don’t know what they was doing.
Confucius Jones Yeah. No. And so it kind of hindered their recognition for their contributions to the genre. But then you have The Neptunes who are just now showing cracks in their, you know, lifelong friendship to where they’re able to kind of control the gantlet and also the perception of what their sound is because they created it, what the forefront of it stayed together. Like you said, I think they have to put Neptunes production, no matter if it’s either one of them.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucius Jones Three six is what they said. Freeway and.
Fresh Knight Edges not clear. If juicy clears, it is cleared. If Powell clears is cleared, I don’t think the both of them have to. I don’t think so either.
Confucius Jones Because, Powell worked on killing Mike’s. That used to do on stage one of the games.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucius Jones So. And they kill him. I sampled some three, six.
Fresh Knight Two and I think like. Most of that stuff that you hear juicy on is something that he clear, like if he worked on it or if he is featured on it and it’s A36 Mafia sample, like that’s just juicy clear that Paul didn’t have to go in and clear that. And you don’t see power pop up when like ASAP Ferg. What was the song? Ride with my mom.
Confucius Jones Oh, no, not new level.
Fresh Knight This is his game. Me? We played this so many times on here.
Confucius Jones Oh, man, was he only got two songs.
Fresh Knight Not that one. That one, like juicy. I think like juicy was around in in the video landing. You know, juicy was around for that I think in the video. And like, you can see Paul. No way. Because I don’t think Paul had to be there. I think people wanted to be there.
Confucius Jones Either way, I hope that both of these guys like Paul, George, Apollo, they still call they three, six, two together. Now is.
Fresh Knight Cool. Now if they call now.
Confucius Jones I think about passing away to.
Fresh Knight Really I think that I think they, I think yeah.
Confucius Jones Maybe like yeah that’s that’s kind of put a little bit. But the Neptune’s fine now it’s just weird.
Fresh Knight Came out of left field.
Confucius Jones I think it’s gonna work itself out. It’s not about no money. It look that looks similar to what, Johnny Gill and Ralph Torres when they. When they bought the name New Edition, all the rest of members are mad. Come to find out, we would try to buy. Somebody else could get it. We were gonna sell it right back to y’all.
Fresh Knight If you don’t think this is going to turn out like Blackstreet or 112.
Confucius Jones I hate you.
Fresh Knight Well, now we got two Blackstreet groups out there.
Confucius Jones Yeah. No, that’s what that’s what Johnny Guillen rap driven said they didn’t want. They said we didn’t want anybody else to take the name and be out there. Tune on the new edition. So I think that’s what happened with Neptune. That thank you to For Real to Chad. We’re trying too hard to buy it for somebody else. Did they tell the other one? And then that is how this whole legal thing happened.
Fresh Knight I can see that. I can see it, I can see it. Stick around for more at this quick break.
Confucius Jones And now it’s time for hip hop facts.
Fresh Knight Woo hoo!
Confucius Jones Facts about the culture. I’ma start off with movies, but hip hop influenced somewhat. I’ma get you sucka.
Fresh Knight Hey, that was my joy right there.
Confucius Jones Famous comedy movie written by Keenen Ivory Wayans. That was a satirical look at blaxploitation movies. Starred Keenen Ivory Wayans, Fred Hammond, Isaac Hayes. There’s also the movie debut of Marlon, the Shawn Wayans. The first movie they’re bringing.
Fresh Knight Marlon Wayans is in the scene with. Oh, boy, Antonio Vargas.
Confucius Jones Yeah, well, he had.
Fresh Knight The pimp outfit.
Confucius Jones Up in the hills with with.
Fresh Knight Fish and.
Confucius Jones Fish in it. Yeah. That’s not a hip hop. Hip hop? Fact is, that the name? The title of the movie I’ma Get You sucker came from Eddie Murphy. Keenen Ivory Wayans got his bones in Hollywood by writing for Eddie Murphy. He’s also a writer and producer on that Murphy row. But it was Eddie Murphy who came with the idea for the movie. And when Keenan actually wrote it, he became actually wrote it. His sister, Kim Wayans.
Fresh Knight Who was in the movie in one of the funniest scenes in the.
Confucius Jones Movie. Oh, yes, you did, Lansing. And I said, who is she as director sister? When they got time to write it, Keenan went back to Eddie to ask permission. Could have used the name I’m Gonna Get You, sucka. And he was like, yes, you can go here.
Fresh Knight That was a that was a little too late to get a piece of that.
Confucius Jones I don’t think so.
Confucius Jones He gave Eddie gave, Keenan that red leather 31 and row then getting destroyed. It still not even the same size kid. Like six, three.
Fresh Knight Yeah, I heard Keenan say he would enter the club when they were Eddie.
Confucius Jones How do you fit in that?
Fresh Knight He’s. Eddie did it as a joke. Oh, he’s. Eddie did it as a joke. And they was like, man, you’re not going to wear that out with us. Oh, you man, he was like, I’m not going to. I guess when they say it, you’re not going to wear that out. Keenan was like, oh, watch me. He’s like, he went and put on the red leather suit and like a wig. And he said he put a sausage in his pants and walked around the club in portray, I can’t remember the name of a character, but he ended up becoming a big character for Keenan. When he started doing a skit, when he was doing the sketch comedy I.
Confucius Jones They a girl?
Fresh Knight Yeah, they was wild, man. They was wild.
Confucius Jones And with Damon, I wild.
Fresh Knight And my first fact I was going to tell you at the heart strings a little bit. It’s going to tug at the high street.
Confucius Jones Oh, boy.
Fresh Knight Minnie Riperton, the mother of comedian Maya Rudolph.
Confucius Jones Yup.
Fresh Knight I didn’t know that her song Memory Lane is written about her battle with cancer and how she didn’t want to leave her husband, and especially leave her children. Which is why at the end of the song, she sings out save me, save me. And when I read it, I teared up with like Jesus.
Confucius Jones I don’t mind loving you.
Fresh Knight He was like, but.
Confucius Jones You mentioned my yeah.
Fresh Knight I was like, Jesus. This made me look at that song totally different now.
Confucius Jones I mean, she died so young man was. Like. Who did it.
Fresh Knight Say it had a lot of career left to go?
Confucius Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight Well, yeah, that’s my first fact.
Confucius Jones Oh, she passed away 31 years young.
Fresh Knight Crazy.
Confucius Jones Man. It was. Damn.
Fresh Knight My fault. My fault. The depot. The moment we go pick it up. We want to pick a.
Confucius Jones Really lighthearted thing.
Fresh Knight All right. Hey, mini Riverton.
Confucius Jones I guess I gotta get back into the rest of rough and tumble stuff. Cameron.
Fresh Knight What do I say after that?
Confucius Jones What do you said? To let that for the end.
Fresh Knight I thought about it. I should, I should have, I should have.
Confucius Jones Cameron was one sign to Roc-A-Fella.
Fresh Knight Was that the fact?
Confucius Jones No, it’s not the fact. I’m trying to find a way to, like, get it right. I feel like I’m driving my car, actually. Like, I don’t want to just be blast my muse. Let me turn the music down and leave. According to Joel Santana, the Oh Boy remix that Jay jumped on.
Fresh Knight That Cam’ron deleted the verse.
Confucius Jones Yeah, deleted verse contained a NAS this in it.
Fresh Knight I heard I read.
Confucius Jones This, he said it was actually it predates takeover. But that’s not what they cut. I mean.
Fresh Knight That makes sense.
Confucius Jones And he got the verse cause of that NAS disc because Dipset had their own issues with not right. They got it because, you know, game. I just did like it. But yeah, it was wack. Yeah. He said Joel said that verse just know just didn’t exist. We saw him delete it like it just didn’t. There’s no other version of that. And also he said when they when Cameron Auto Guru deleted, he was like, I want nothing to do with this.
Fresh Knight I mean, he didn’t.
Confucius Jones Say I got it. He said he he said he said Guru’s show. They did. They had to delete it because I’m not nothing.
Fresh Knight Nothing.
Confucius Jones So but yeah, Bentley originally had NAS this honor. So Jay that goes to show that Jay was plotting. Yeah. Oh trying to get how to get to now. But like we said, he was throwing little dots at him anyway.
Fresh Knight And that that makes sense because oh boy came out before is oh am I correct? Yeah. He’s up with the first single forward. Take over that take what?
Confucius Jones The blueprint after 2001. Yeah, that came out before so but they were probably working on come on, come on. He came out to that in two I think. Yeah. So yeah they were working on it. So I know he said it, he said that when they, when he found out that is Obi was going to kind of tell him I get it beat. Jay. They said they try to record it and put it out, but he said they turned on the TV. Just perform the beat award.
Confucius Jones The damn I say good week. So they.
Fresh Knight I thought it to us.
Confucius Jones He said that was off album for viral went. Viral the day I think.
Fresh Knight Oh my. Next back we talked about Juicy Jay in three six Mafia. He signed Gangsta Boo at 13 years old.
Confucius Jones From these people, Saudi rappers, young guys.
Fresh Knight People say she started doing music and I guess she was making a little noise around Memphis and juicy got wind of it and somehow, somehow got her phone number and called her home phone. This is back when you had landlines and no Colorado. And he was like, yo, I’m trying to find so-and-so. And, you know, I’m juicy, you know, three, six Mafia. And she was like me complaining, get off my phone and hung up on him. And he called her back and was like, no, yo, I’m looking for so, so because she was going by a different name, Nia, I just don’t remember what it was.
Confucius Jones And but it’s crazy that you have. You’re talking to my huge executive. They were probably like late teens around.
Fresh Knight And so, but she said, you know, he ended up signing her and worked with her and honed her skill on. And she didn’t. She wasn’t released until they felt she was ready to come out. And then you hear on the three six Mafia records.
Confucius Jones She had a problem. Houston man had the vision.
Fresh Knight Yeah, the vision man.
Confucius Jones Yeah. But yesterday it’s funny, we hear these type of stuff even with like Jermaine about like yeah you know they gave you know about a lot of Jermaine Dupri from Death row. So Jermaine he was like 20 when that happened. Like these are kids okay. Now these people are young. Yes. It was happening. All right. My final fact. The sound ls performing the Super Bowl that I dreaded happening. My boo. These kids an usher. I don’t know what’s produced by nobody.
Fresh Knight I didn’t know that.
Confucius Jones So apparently after. No. Nobody in common with us boys, they came into the game together. No, I did found his way to Social Def, which explains how Kanye West runs into nobody. So he was over there kind of just hanging around ghost producing. One of the songs he produced was My Boo.
Fresh Knight What’s the song on College Dropout? Last call? He does explain that he no became his mentor. He didn’t say, like, I met him because I was around so, so so was he.
Confucius Jones Yeah. He produced my boo out of my system. Bye bye. Waiting. Let me hold you. Bye bye. Well.
Fresh Knight What? No I did.
Confucius Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight I know he did those.
Confucius Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight I kind of like out of my system with T-Pain.
Fresh Knight Yeah, yeah.
Fresh Knight I like that’s one of the later Bo L songs that I like.
Confucius Jones And has produced So So def.
Fresh Knight Had no idea. Look at that, man.
Confucius Jones I know I did my booth because I really thought that was like Aljamain, but it makes sense because once again, if you give Jermaine the same respect that you give a Drago Timlin, they have a group of producers over there. Danger comes out of Timberland’s camp. Scott Storage comes out of Doctor Dre camps. They go over there, you know, ghost produce. And so.
Fresh Knight Little John comes out of so.
Confucius Jones So damn.
Fresh Knight So, what’s this homeboy that does the management?
Confucius Jones I Brian Michael Cox.
Fresh Knight No, no, the white guy. I mean, he’s managing Justin Bieber.
Confucius Jones Oh. Scooter Braun.
Fresh Knight Yeah. Scooter Braun comes out of that. Now, we don’t know. It kind of comes out of that. Couldn’t think of his name. And I want to call him something else. I don’t know.
Confucius Jones No, just Bieber’s Scooter Braun.
Fresh Knight I want to call him.
Confucius Jones I was thinking about that pop star. Somebody said that they came to me.
Fresh Knight With my third and final fact. We spoke about the Neptunes. And also, Pharrell is celebrating celebrating his 51st birthday, which was on the Friday the fifth, and juicy J was celebrating his 49th birthday on fifth.
Confucius Jones That’s really 20 years old. You’ve heard those a lot.
Fresh Knight I had them he had them triplets. He started aging.
Confucius Jones You do that.
Fresh Knight But, the Neptunes, the Neptunes, at one point in time produce 40% of the songs on Billboard’s Top 100.
Confucius Jones I think I heard this before.
Fresh Knight Yeah, this is kind of a fact that has been thrown out there. But when you say it to people, they kind of get like, really? What? This was around the time Britney Spears put out toxic because they did it toxic. And like you pointed out earlier, they produced for NSync and all of that.
Confucius Jones So like remakes, which I like.
Fresh Knight Yeah, they did. Yeah. At one point they, they produced 40% of the top 100 songs on the Billboard charts. And I think that is a thing that does add to their influence.
Confucius Jones So wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. That was your hip hop fact.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucius Jones And you tried to argue they were less influential than 36 southern bias.
Fresh Knight Unless we count in Virginia, the South.
Confucius Jones We are. Are we for this argument? New York, does.
Fresh Knight New York think anything below that in the southern New York thing? Philadelphia. So they really do. I think Delaware is the South, like.
Confucius Jones Jersey like the whole different places right.
Fresh Knight Away. They act like they they act like they Maine or Vermont and they at the top of the, like, Maine side. Whatever.
Confucius Jones Man. That. But now it, yeah.
Fresh Knight But as I would say, that does add to the, to your argument that they are more in love.
Confucius Jones Three, six they’ve never done that.
Fresh Knight They haven’t done they have never done that. They have never done that. They Neptune, Neptune’s and Tum’s. Do they think there.
Confucius Jones Might be an argument in Neptune’s more, versatile? Versatile, I should say, than that three six permit as a conversation with them.
Fresh Knight But you I definitely would say that more versatile. Yeah.
Confucius Jones So three things more influential.
Fresh Knight And my deep southern bias. Yes. Since we count Virginia the South.
Confucius Jones They’re both. They both be southern.
Fresh Knight And I guess we kind of. I guess they don’t even kind of.
Confucius Jones They really don’t. I don’t know what they counties up into in until they.
Fresh Knight Said they were mid Atlantic, you.
Fresh Knight Well yeah man that’s my, that’s, that’s and goes with my nose with my hip hop facts man.
Confucius Jones That was my hip hop was I like this. That was that was a good yeah. You start off with that sad one. Like they got kind of get around this. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for unpopular opinion with fresh himself.
Fresh Knight All right, man, we’re going to get straight to it. Radio is dead is something that I’ve been hearing for quite some time in probably the last decade and a half, or maybe last two decades. No. Would say last decade and a half. I won’t get it. 2000 radio. Still a real big day. A 2000, I would say. Like somewhere around to 20 tens into the 2020s is where people started. The whole radio is dead thing. But working in radio, I now realize that. Yeah, only talk about commercial radio. Public radio is the way confuses isn’t going to like this, but. On a previous episode of the Joe Budden Podcast, Joe said something that I kind of cringe debt and kind of raise an eyebrow to like, well, that’s what we do. And he was like, why in radio can you not have like a block? Like a radio station? They do like a Black a rap or a Black a jazz, and I do a Black, a rock n roll. And I was like, that’s exactly what we do. It cut! What are you talking about? Exactly what public radio does. Like we come on for three hours on Saturday. That’s a block. And then three hours on Sunday morning. You get Sunday morning jazz with Jay Trachtenberg. That is a Black like you do old school or we do. We got two blocks of old school R&B. We do it Friday from 4 to 7 with Johnny Dee. And then we do Uptown Saturday Night with Paul Garuba for a whole four hours or three. Yeah, three hours. Now. My fault they lost out because we get out. But yeah. So like. Like public radio is the way to things that people cry and complain about. We. Commercial radio. Public radio makes up for that. Like people complain when y’all radio plays the same song every hour on our what? That’s commercial radio. We don’t do that here at public radio. Yes, there is a regular rotation, but those songs are not played every single hour on the hour. You may hear during my shift on Saturday morning at 10 a.m., but you probably won’t hear it again until our satellite comes on, or until Trina Clean comes on Saturday morning, or until you in the songs. Then you may hear that at the beginning of hardship, and they may not hear the same song again played until like the end of Confucius shift on that same Sunday. So public radio kind of answers everything that everybody complains about radio. When people are hooting, holler that the big name radio station in town won’t play the local artist. Well, hey, we play it. It’s kind of the whole tagline of the music experience. You really don’t have a. Excuse as to why you can’t be played on radio. Because now there are radio stations, public radio stations that are willing and wanting to play the up and coming and rising artists in a city or in even in that region. And this whole myth that radio is dead kind of gets proven wrong when public radio throws his hat into the ring, and it really helps elevate artists in their career. We’ve seen many of artists like Lizzo do a Studio one. They hear the year two album comes out in like 2017 with all the hits on it, and I also do a South by Southwest event put on by public radio. In the years later, those songs blow up and we’re able to say, well, hey, look, we we were doing that first Black Pumas. Another great example. First one’s to play them on air cut and look at them now, Grammy nominated and all. Black Odyssey. Same thing. So all of this talk that radio is dead and radio no longer helps you. Y’all forget there are still some hundreds of millions of people who still look to radio to give them or tell them what is new and what they should be listening to. And it’s not just old people. We get the numbers. Our program director does periodically read the numbers, do what used to do a weekly. You should get back to doing that, Matt.
Fresh Knight Yeah man. Public radio is the way it is. The answer to everything that people say is wrong with radio. That radio is dead. Radio doesn’t really help an artist. Public radio answers all of that. And if you want to continue to have radio elevate artists, go ahead and go over to cut Talk and make a donation today. And that’s my that’s my unpopular opinion.
Confucius Jones That’s probably the show I’m unpopular.
Fresh Knight Probably. Is I really after after that I was just going to start rambling and saying the same thing and talking in circles somewhere.
Confucius Jones As you were talking, I was looking up different articles about radio being relevant. I found this one from Layton Media, which listed ten reasons why radio is still relevant. One is frequency is best on air. So psychologists tell us that consumers need to be exposed to an advertising message at least three times before it begins to resonate. When businesses review their advertising budget and consider this factor, radio is one of the few mediums to choose from that offers an affordable repeat ad planned, which is very true. And we run the same ads over and over again. The kind of ingrained you guys say it’s.
Fresh Knight Underwriting.
Confucius Jones Good old underwriting. It says that radio has deeper engagement with listeners. And radio also has a huge impact on local communities, which almost explains CTCs to a t our contributions, not just as other radio stations in the city to the scene helped keep it in the main spotlight. If you think about it, there’s no CTCs. It was decades off.
Fresh Knight There’s no CVS or co-op.
Confucius Jones Or there’s a lot of these artists you would know about. And I think to whom we’ve talked about it, that radio is still important because it’s very much personality driven.
Fresh Knight Especially public radio.
Confucius Jones There’s a reason why people in the morning are going to work or coming in the afternoon going home from work. Tune in because it gives you a form of escapism. Yes, you can listen to most people do, you know, get to make a playlist on, you know, streaming service. But I can understand why the voice of Taylor in the morning or Jodie alone in the afternoon could be soothing. And also it radios more personable because think about how many people walk up to us and it just excited to see us. Not so much because we’re on radio, but because we are part of their lives in a very personal way. When you’re in the car, you’re most likely by yourself. And so, you know, they just they’re just like, yo, I feel like I’m meeting a family member in public radio gives you more space to humanize the music and the person who’s delivering the music to you. I was listening to a radio station in town, and you could tell the people on the radio from Austin, it’s a syndicated show. It just sounds like this. Whatever junior host, they could find their on air to try to just get you through the music. You’re never going to see these people. But like I said here, critics public, right. We’re out here in the community. You’ll see us in advance. You’ll see us. You listen to the breaks. You say, oh, fresh future. Just you say, pop guys and you see fresh. It ripped apart taking pictures. You see me corralling kids like, oh, wait, wait a minute. Yeah, we’re out here. What are you doing out here?
Fresh Knight In, out. Oh, one thing I didn’t point out was we don’t necessarily follow the mainstream standard. Yes, yes, we play Beyonce. Yes, we play Kendrick Lamar. But we also play like an up and coming band coming out of Australia that nobody really hasn’t really heard about yet hasn’t really broke through. We play a lot of people from Australia in the UK might as well be. The UK experience will be at this point, but neither here nor there.
Confucius Jones Look at the UK Black. Do you know what I think? Yeah, I think I play three Bass Road off from Australia. That’s Australia.
Fresh Knight Yeah. But like that’s public radio. We do our best to not necessarily play what commercial in the big name iHeart or clear. What is it clear what clear channel. Yeah. Radio one stations are playing like you’re not going to hear just top 40 here.
Confucius Jones Yeah. And I think one of the points to that this article mentioned is radio content has diversified to cater to evolving listener preferences. You look at Spotify saying, you know, we’ve created this mix for you of the songs you like the best or. You know, that’s that’s fine and dandy, but do they hear radio all the time?
Fresh Knight All the time. And it’s us doing it. It’s not an algorithm.
Confucius Jones It’s not an algorithm. So yeah, radio I think, is in a better place to conform and change to what’s coming. Granted, I’m glad and I’m glad it has because yeah, had radio been the same way it was when I was ten and I’m the only thing last. But it’s definitely, you know, gotten to a place where like eradicated we have you know podcaster launching had kick said you know we don’t need podcasts we just play music thing. And yet I’d been behind a board but.
Fresh Knight But cut looked at the landscape and say we we got to tackle the digital aspect of the things I.
Confucius Jones Would argue.
Fresh Knight Some time of the market.
Confucius Jones I get more people walking up to me. This is me saying they listen to podcasts more, to listen to us when we live on air.
Fresh Knight I get it, I get that sometimes. I also get that people come up to me and say, oh, you. I wouldn’t have known about this artist had you not played. Or had they been had I heard them being played on the breaks and artists physically showing me how many schisms that they have gotten because of songs, because of the song that we have play on radio.
Confucius Jones And we have to because we’re a public radio, we’re listeners support it. We have to be for the people. We can’t just be these guys and girls up here in a box speaking to a microphone and never come outside. We have two emotions. Exactly. We have to be a part and change the landscape. And I think that Dave radios, I think is okay because everybody loves music.
Fresh Knight So yeah man. Yeah yeah yeah. So but like I said, you want to continue to have this great station continue to do what we do and push push music forward. Head on over to Cut Dawg and donate today. Man. We can’t do what we do without you. Let’s get informed and entertained. Here is Confucius reads the news.
Confucius Jones Good old news time. This is an election year, so I’m just trying to softball the news as much as I can for this ramps up in the next few few months. Also shout out to you. Let’s to be honest, am you say it right, I did. I have not heard of yet.
Fresh Knight What? I’ll beat you to the punch, I know.
Confucius Jones Right?
Fresh Knight That was the most I’ll say that here. That was the most enjoyable listening experience I’ve ever had. Listening to country music.
Confucius Jones Wait. Do you see? You laugh?
Fresh Knight I might cry and and I will say it was. It was a Beyoncé.
Confucius Jones Album you said it was going to be.
Fresh Knight Now I’m going to say this, cousin Jay-Z. It’s a lot of a lot of damn songs, man. 27 songs this long.
Confucius Jones Me, Chris Brown said, hold my beer.
Fresh Knight And I’ve yet to listening to an entire album.
Confucius Jones Do you think about that? That’s a that’s a.
Fresh Knight Yeah, that’s all we had out with 56 songs on it. I didn’t even get halfway through that.
Fresh Knight I think I listened to the first 30.
Confucius Jones I listen to one album and as it was going, I was just like, it’s still on, like as an all day affair, but let’s get to it. Speaking of music, the Forbes list celebrity billionaires came out.
Fresh Knight Celebrity billionaires.
Confucius Jones Billionaires. Rihanna comes in at number nine with an estimated net worth of 1.4 billion, thanks largely to her billion dollar brands Fenty Beauty and Savage X, which once again confirms to.
Fresh Knight Me I ain’t never getting it.
Confucius Jones Out there. We’re not getting it out, bro.
Fresh Knight Hey, look, man. Hey, look, I got three savage X robes, and at the house satin.
Confucius Jones They can’t relate to.
Fresh Knight One is like a nice snakeskin.
Confucius Jones So you can trim it. It’s not getting to that. Stop buying her stuff.
Fresh Knight I mean, we gotta.
Confucius Jones Slow to strain down.
Fresh Knight We got into the album, man. I got some sand boxes, dude. Real comfortable.
Confucius Jones He’s a dope fiend.
Fresh Knight His great quality, man is great quality.
Confucius Jones Oh, God. Delegate Jay-Z, who is hip hop first billionaire sister number five with 2.5 billion, which he’s amassed through various business and entertainment ventures, investments and fame and music catalog. That figure does not include his wife Beyonce’s net worth, which is estimated to be around 500 million.
Fresh Knight That’s it.
Confucius Jones Three does a lot of music. Jay don’t do as much music.
Fresh Knight I mean, some of them, some of them ventures outside of music.
Confucius Jones The three richest celebrities, Michael Jordan with 3.2, Steven Spielberg with 4.8 billion. And who’s number one, George Lucas with clap one five.
Fresh Knight I think it’d be fun to say Donald Trump how much.
Confucius Jones He wishes on that list. I’m like you, I don’t know. Forbes still published that list.
Fresh Knight I didn’t either. Like, I hadn’t seen it in a few years. So I thought they, like, quit doing it. Oh, I just, I guess I just hadn’t paid attention to.
Confucius Jones One notable omission from the list is Diddy, who joined the billionaires club in October 2022, making him the second wealthiest hip hop figure behind ho! They just took his name off completely, but.
Fresh Knight Says he’s no. Because I think what got him there was the alcohol and he no longer making it anymore.
Confucius Jones So yeah, his, his wealth has dropped down.
Confucius Jones I think Jay-Z has mentioned that he’s at the Forbes list is what I let him think I have. So yeah, sure. That’s it. That’s all I have.
Fresh Knight He just slotted the number over to shoot this. That’s it, that’s it.
Confucius Jones Right. This stuff I know y’all can look up on your own. So yeah, this is it. So Austin, great place to live I love Austin made us who we are. Got to have a homelessness problem. According to the latest data on KXAN, kxan.com, the latest data shows an estimated 5530 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Austin and an estimated 1153 in shelters that 6683 people who are homeless in our city.
Fresh Knight That’s it. I’m not going to add that that number will be higher, saying.
Confucius Jones How do they feel about homeless people? Fresh?
Fresh Knight No comment.
Confucius Jones So yeah, I did I would do.
Fresh Knight You know I see. Yes. Well that’s no comment, no comment.
Confucius Jones I’ll say this homelessness is a problem that the city needs to do better of addressing, I definitely does. The city also needs to be helped. Be honest and note the fact that because of the the leniency that we have on homelessness here, a lot of homeless people come down here just for that.
Fresh Knight Yes, the city needs to realize that the leniency we’ve had for decades is the reason why you have we kind of have the issue that we have. I have literally seen people hop off the Greyhound bus and say, why can’t I hear the panel? Yeah, like I’ve literally seen that. So like, yeah, it’s I believe a report came out. I think the state mandated at one point. I’ve been looking for this, this article. I think the state media, the report only one year. And I think they say like homeless panhandlers average somewhere like $500 a day. That was the average. There’s not meaning everybody out there is making $500 a day. But that was the average. And I thought to myself it was math. People would a regular 9 to 5 job that don’t make $500 a day.
Confucius Jones So what’s happening is the city of Austin, they brought in a consultant to make recommendations about how to best address the homelessness in the city and better educate the public on where the money’s going. One of the elements they have a dashboard to bring in, which would give the ability for Austinites to track city contracts and to see where city dollars are going when it comes to homelessness. The only thing I’ve seen effective in terms of maybe trying to curb homelessness here or find a way to do something about it, was when you put all that money into the homeless people not be able to camp anywhere. You look it up.
Fresh Knight And be downtown.
Confucius Jones I know they made it seem like, oh, the city that you t that was out UT put all that money behind UT got tired of homeless people camping in front of their students on campus and they.
Fresh Knight Say and assaulting.
Confucius Jones We got to shut this down.
Fresh Knight And we get alerts. Is a lot of a vagrant assaults on campus or in the campus area.
Confucius Jones You know, and that’s an airport, you know, Mo so that that’s something I can think of. But I mean, almost people in this city are interesting. I can only reference obstacles. I live here, I’ll say that while you know.
Fresh Knight Some of the most colorful people in the world.
Confucius Jones While a lot of them do deal mental illness, and it’s unfortunate they’re out on the streets, some of them are just assholes. Like I said, work no deal. They they yell at you when they can’t get any money at you. They start yelling. So.
Fresh Knight I’ll give a dollar on it and you can move to the next topic. I think it is a lifestyle. I do, I think for, for a percentage of them, like the panhandling and sleeping outside. And I think that is a lifestyle because we’ve seen the city, we’ve seen the city say we want to buy this abandoned hotel and we’re going to use this to house homeless. And then they released a report saying that, you know, nobody’s going into they aren’t going into that. Tell me that they prefer to be in the living situation, that they want to be, that they that they are in, they prefer to be be their they don’t. Somebody is giving me room and board free, a nice warm place to go and sleep and take a bath. Yeah I might, I would take that. But I also understand how homelessness befalls someone. So I don’t want nobody think that I’m just like some A-hole.
Confucius Jones I know how you really feel about I.
Fresh Knight No comment. About.
Confucius Jones Going back to UT. According to the Texas Tribune, UT announces a round of firing in his latest step to comply with Texas DUI ban, because now Republicans have latched on to D.
Fresh Knight Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to be proud to be from the Lone Star State.
Confucius Jones According to Texas Tribune, the University of Texas at Austin has laid off dozens of employees who used to work in diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The university fired about 60 people in some of the offices where they worked are expected to close by May 31st, according to a joint letter from the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors and the Texas chapter of the NAACP. The changes aim to bring the university into full compliance with Senate Bill 17, a state law approved last year that bans DEA initiatives in public universities and went into effect in January. I have seen tweets from students at UT saying that a professor has told them, beginning of class, I have been fired, but I’m being forced to stay here through the semester. Greg Abbott was a huge proponent and supporter of Senate Bill 17 because, like I said, he’s now the catch word for Republicans on trying to break down programs that help minorities. YouTube apparently was slow to try to initiate those. Changes. But basically, according to UT president A.J. Hartsdale in an email, the school was also disbanding the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, which provided support and resources for those who may face the most significant challenges in accessing education.
Fresh Knight That’s how a lot of.
Confucius Jones People, according to the department’s website.
Fresh Knight I saw a lot of people. I saw a lot of people tweeting in Up in Arms about that department closing.
Confucius Jones That it’s so much not a UTSA Texas thing. You know, Texas forced them to do it. Like I said, Abbott, I don’t care what anybody says. Governor Abbott is trying to get a position in Trump’s cabinet. So Trump get reelected because all of this just political grandstanding, getting rid of the, does what was that supposed to do?
Fresh Knight That was my question.
Confucius Jones It’s always funny is bad when they get rid of these programs that are supposed to help my daughters is a blown up in their face because she realizes maybe it not as smart as you thought they were getting rid of minorities, getting into these places and trying to uplift your your true. And it’s not gonna work out the way you think. It isn’t so good old Texas man.
Fresh Knight Texas government is making it really hard to be proud to be from the Lone Star State.
Confucius Jones Oh, yeah, we we we screw up all the time, but we’ll see how that plays out. Moving on. Donald Trump is suing the co-founders of Truth Social, alleging that they mismanaged the social media platform early on and should therefore lose their stock in the company, which recently went public. So last year I spoke about true social going public. And, you know, it’s, evaluation being super high and which if Trump cashed out, he’d have the money to pay off somebody.
Fresh Knight Like I was going to and I was going to get to that.
Confucius Jones We’re come to find out that, you know, what it was with Trump supporters trying to jump up the price of the stock to try to help Trump out. But what ended up happening was the stock started falling on Tuesday, closing in at $51.60. The decline came after the company reported a net loss of 58.2 million and a revenue of only made. They only made $4.1 million in 2023, so it’s kind of hard to drive the stock up for price of a company doesn’t make any money, but it’s trying to get rid of the people who have started with him who ironically, were on the run Celebrity Apprentice when they are the Apprentice. They got fired from The Apprentice by Trump, but they came to him after he got booted off Twitter after January 6th and say, we have this idea. And Trump tried to get rid of them now, mainly because he said, like I said, he they mishandled funds. That’s what he says. But what it seems to me is he just wants the money. He’s trying to get rid of the middleman.
Fresh Knight Yeah. That’s what I was going to say. Well, going to get it with.
Confucius Jones All he wants to do. But I say if running doing what you think was going to happen. And finally, the news, Bernie Sanders is proposing a 32 hour workweek. According to him, it only makes sense because most developed countries don’t work 40 hours a week, except for us. And 86 years ago, Roosevelt signed a 40 hour workweek in the law, and it’s time to move on to the 32 hour workweek. With the increase of AI and the need for human interaction, would work could not be as sustainable. I’m not mad at it also. Do you really need 40 hours a week to work the most? Most of our jobs don’t require that.
Fresh Knight Yeah, most people are in a position at their job where they need 40 hours to get every single thing done. Unless you’re just sitting at work and just not doing anything.
Confucius Jones Yeah, exactly. In the U.S. and Canada, according to CNN, more than two thirds of workers showed less job burnout. Anxiety and fatigue declined by roughly 40%, and 60% reported more success achieving a work family balance.
Fresh Knight We all say that affects the paycheck, though.
Confucius Jones Yeah, that’s going to be happening. And I say, well, you ain’t making much money doing so, but I’m wood burning and granted Bernie likes to, you know, make these grand gestures too, that never go anywhere.
Confucius Jones But. You know, shout out to him for doing it. I don’t. Well, do I think it’ll that’ll happen anytime soon. No.
Fresh Knight No.
Confucius Jones Bernie’s argument is that the 40 hour workweek only really helps those at the top. Top? You know, the rich CEOs and the billionaires.
Fresh Knight Capitalism.
Confucius Jones Exactly that. They’re the ones pushing the Ford out because they need to keep and sustain their their status in the country. So you and I would love to see a 32 hour workweek. I ain’t glad to be mocked yet. I’ve had I only work through 32 hours. It’s the paychecks that’s 40, but I’m not working. It just breaks in there. Breaks in some spacing. I have some going on, but. You know, shoutout to Bernie. But that is Confucius reads the news.
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.
