Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss X Corps recently filed lawsuit against advertisers for what it calls an illegal boycott. And, well, discuss ice cubes flirtation with figures like Tucker Carlson, and particularly in light of his legacy in hip hop music and the kind of music he's made, and also his legacy in hip hop culture.
Welcome to the call like I see it podcast. I'm James Keys, and riding with me today is a man who many of you have heard of. Who else but mama's only son, Tunde Ogon Lana Tunde. Are you ready to tell us why we can expect no more pain?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yep.
Maybe I'll bring the rain. Let's see.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: That was last week, man.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: I know, but I'm just thinking, is it better to be the only son or the prodigal son?
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Hey, hey. Well, you know, we'll have to sort that out.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Maybe I got to talk to Mama about that.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Let's see. All right, now, we're recording this on August 11, 2024. And last week, we saw Elon Musk's ex corp. Which is formerly Twitter, sue a collection of advertisers for what it calls unlaw, an unlawful boycott. And the lawsuit essentially contends that these advertisers together, you know, working together, are operating as a monopoly and using that power to collectively decide to not buy ads from Twitter.
And that's unfair. Now, the stated reason for the advertisers has been, was and has been just that. They don't believe that Twitter and or X and what goes on there is brand safe anymore, that their brands, they don't want to risk being associated with it, whatever the kind of content that their brands might be pushed next to or things like that.
So now we have, you know, a free speech, a self proclaimed free speech absolutist. Now, whether he actually is, that is another story. But suing people in business for refusing to do business with him or refusing to engage in the kind of speech that he wants them to engage in. So, Tunde, get us started. You know, just what's your reaction to this recent lawsuit? You know, what stands out? You know, with Musk apparently seeking to punish advertisers for not doing business with.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Him, I'd say my first reaction as I was preparing for this is I realized I actually want to finally give, after all these years, over a decade, the Supreme Court credit for allowing corporations to be seen as people. Remember all that? Because I realized now they do have freedom of speech like us. And that means this lawsuit should be put in a dustbin of history.
Yeah, I think that this is un american just by its spirit, trying to coerce and force private companies into paying basically a vague Orlando, some sort of, you know, almost like a protection bracket. Like. Like, you know, like this guy was some mafia don and queens in the 1950s or something. Tell him some deli guy that owns a deli, like, hey, man, you know, you better. If you don't pay up this week, you know, it's going to be bad for you. And. And so, yeah, I think. I think that this isn't the time when Elon Musk is exposed. I think he's been exposed a long time ago as basically a fraud on this idea of freedom of speech and that he's going to protect it. I think this is just another example that, you know, he is what he is. He appears to be an authoritarian who is grandiose. And, you know what I do appreciate, and I'll hand it back, that he was honest. It appears at some point in the recent years when he acknowledged he's got Asperger's syndrome live. And he strikes me as a guy that is on the spectrum of something like that. And so that's not me trying to be a medical doctor or diagnose a guy on tv. I'm just going by what he says. So it appears evident that he's making moves in public that don't seem to be that cohesive and don't seem to be well thought out, period.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think it also just reflects kind of the idea of, well, you know, like, I might makes right, so to speak, because, yeah, from a legal standpoint, you know, when you first sent this to me, like, you saw this before? I did. And it was laughable to me. You know, it was just like, you gotta be kidding me. And now this type of claim is not like something that on its face, this type of claim. Not what's happening here, but this type of claim on its face is just going to be without merit no matter what. Like, you're in a situation, and we'll have stuff in the show notes. They give examples, like, okay, you're in a small town, and all the car dealerships. All the car car dealerships in that town decide, hey, we're not going to advertise at the newspaper because they're publishing unbiased reviews or, you know, something like that. Like, that's the type of thing that. Where you might have an antitrust type of situation where you have entities working together in a way that would be anti competitive. In this instance, it's laughable because this one group of advertisers is not every advertiser in the whole world or every advertiser in the whole country or, you know, whatever it is, this is a group that is based overseas, and there's several companies that are overseas companies with this. So, you know, like, to try to suggest that these, they're behaving in a way that's monopolistic when there's all these other people that aren't a part of this is laughable to me. So, but setting aside that, you know, a couple of interesting points, one of the things you brought up to me when we first talked about this was, oh, well, did he file it? I see. Filed it in Texas. So there was he able to get one of, you know, one of the judges that Trump put in that's supposed to be very friendly to and give rulings to conservatives, you know, when whatever they file in these courts, you know, similar to judge cannon in Florida, you know, there's a couple of them in Texas. And from what I saw, the answer is yes. Like, he did get this in front of one of the judges that allow these things to go further than they will and so forth. So whether or not he's able to make some hay with the lawsuit and what makes them, hey, meaning win, probably not, but cost these guys a lot of money in legal fees and embarrass them, try to take discovery, try to find things that are discovered that are, you know, like, embarrassing about them, make them public and so forth. He can use it as a tool of harassment, you know, like in this instance. And so that's like, okay, well, I have a lot of money. I might as well send my lawyers after you and try to actually, to secure some kind of concession from you, even though I ultimately may not win in court, you know, it's really not the type of society that we would want to put forward for people who really do believe in freedom of speech and that business can make decisions for their own and the best, what they believe is in the best interest of their, you know, their products and their branding and so forth. Yeah, it's completely inconsistent with the man the guy says he is. But as you pointed out, this is like, he's been being inconsistent with the man he says he is for a while now.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, let me, let me add in there, because this isn't in a vacuum.
We use the word harassment, which I think is very appropriate because this is coming off the heels. There's a little bit of hand and glove here and a symbiotic nature between certain parts of our Congress and those who are influential in certain ecosystems online and in certain media spaces. So this all came off the back of a House Judiciary committee finding. So the House of Representatives in Congress, the Judiciary committee, had an investigation. It looked like it was, you know, like. Like they already. Just like they've done in other things in the recent years, like spending 18 months and all this hard time and taxpayer dollars and their own attention, which they should be paying to things like legislating things in the future on investigating the Biden crime family, so to speak, and trying to impeach him with all that just falling apart because there was nothing there. So here, I'm going to quote a bit from an article we'll have in the show notes the House Judiciary report rejects the idea that advertisers left Twitter because of alleged hate speech or concerns about brand safety, claiming they did so as a part of a plot to use their marketing dollars to silence certain disfavored views. And what I realize is the problem we have right now in the United States is we are being held hostage by some people who are colluding in our political class and people like Elon Musk on the business class side, that I think they're just paranoid. I mean, think about it. They said that they are. The House Judiciary Committee is saying that these people are trying not to advertise because they're trying to silence some voices or something. The whole point is they don't want to believe that maybe a us citizen like me just doesn't want to deal with people using the n word and Nazis saying anti semitic stuff, and that there's a lot of corporations that might want to sell stuff to a guy like me. And they probably don't want to be advertising on platforms where their ad will be right next to something that would offend someone like me. And that doesn't mean. And this is where I think Elon Musk goes sideways with this whole thing about. About freedom of speech. That doesn't mean a guy like me is trying to silence Elon Musk at all. I don't care what he does. He can have his platform and drive it into the ground like he's done. But it's just that the fact that now we have a congressional committee that is also giving fuel to the fire of this. Of this kind of. This meme that these woke corporations somehow are attacking the speech of others, and in this case, to your point, is so convoluted, because it's basically saying that by them exercising their freedom of speech to choose where they advertise by not advertising on Twitter is somehow attacking Twitter and people on the right. So it's just like many things that have happened. It's just.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: But like you said, paranoia because you choose what to hear. Like, that finding from the House Judiciary Committee came. Came after those. Those entities testified that that's what they were concerned about. So they said, okay, you said you were concerned about x, Y, and Z. Well, we find that you weren't. And it's like.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Well, exactly.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: You're just. You just decide this.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: But you know what it is, too, James. Like, they don't want to acknowledge that people within kind of the culture that they promote and that they are, you know, they're seeking votes from in Congress, and people like Elon Musk seem to want attention from. From the public that those people are bigots that they like. Like, it's okay if they're bigots and just accept that most american corporations won't want to advertise there. And you can have your space, but don't disrupt the rest of us by trying to force everybody onto those spaces when we don't want to be there, period.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Well, and I think particularly using these types of mechanisms disingenuously, because, you know, you talk about the hand in glove, but I, you know, like, going in on that a little bit more, it's very conceivable that the. That judiciary committee hearing was put forth because Musk tried to get it put forth like that. He was a part of saying, hey, I want you guys to go do this, and then I'm going to use this, if I can, to try to file a lawsuit. So it becomes this harassment campaign, using the levers of government to try to bully people into buying stuff from this guy.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Are you telling me they're weaponizing the government, all the people, it looks like.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: They'Re weaponizing the government to try to bully people, to buy stuff from Elon Musk. And so, you know, like. And that's really, like, okay, so what kind of country are we going towards now? You know, where it's like, okay, well, if you don't go, like you said, pay your protection fee from Elon Musk, then you're going to get drawn in front of house committees. You're gonna get lawsuits filed against you, against judges that won't, even though they might, should get thrown out right away. That judge will let it play out and let it go to trial because he's been put in to ensure that this type of stuff happens. And so, yes, it's the weaponization of the government that many people claim to fear. It seems like they're just projecting on what they're trying to do with the government and use the government to try to get these means together for whatever worldview they're trying to force on other people. And I think it's important, though, as you indicated, to indicate or to kind of note that the goal here of our conversation is not to say that these voices shouldn't be out there anywhere. It's just to say freedom of speech does not mean that there aren't going to be consequences for the speech. From a commercial standpoint, it says there's going to be no consequences from a legal jeopardy standpoint, you won't go to jail for saying certain, you know, saying, hey, I disagree with this person, or I think this person is wrong or something like that. But people can choose not to do business with you because of the things you say, and that's not a part of freedom of speech. Say, hey, you know, like, I don't like the way this person talks about these people, so I'm not gonna do business with them anymore. There's no freedom of speech protection from that. Like, that's the point, is that you should be able to do those things, and then other people should be able to respond to what you say by deciding if they wanna engage with you. So it's really, I don't know if it's a misunderstanding of freedom of speech or if it's more of it, like you said, like, the kind of mindset of, like, a domineering, authoritarian type of mindset saying, hey, my way is the way that should be. Should everybody should believe what I say. So therefore, if you try to discount what I say, then there's going to be consequences to you for that. And here are the consequences, so to speak. You're going to have to spend money on lawyers. You're going to have to fight these lawsuits in front of judges that were specifically put there to allow me to do this and draw this out and so forth. And like I said, we got to see firsthand, you know, with Judge cannon in terms of how putting a judge in a place like that really allows people to get secure legal rulings that ultimately may be reversed but also can be. Can allow you to drag out something or to really get somewhere with the law that you really shouldn't be able to get there because you put judges in that are sympathetic to your cause at best, you know, or, excuse me, like saying it very generously, as they're sympathetic.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Well, you know what? It reminds me a lot. I mean, it's kind of like we're in this era where there's some people on the top of our political world, some people on the top of the business world, and, you know, they like the attention they get from the media. Like, I think of someone like Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News and News Corp, he's the opposite of Elon Musk. He's the type of guy that seems like he doesn't want to be in the spotlight, and he's very quiet and you don't hear from him and he makes his billions. So Elon Musk clearly is a type of guy that got wealthy and he wants the whole world to know it and know what he thinks, and he forces everyone to, you know, have to opt out of getting his Twitter feeds and all that. So, but what he reminds me a lot is like, Donald Trump, meaning here's a guy, I mean, obviously different, but Donald Trump run casinos into the ground. Right, and showed that when his business.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Or the one business that prints money no matter where it goes. Yeah, like, exactly. So nobody, everybody, you know, the house always wins. Except.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: That'S another show. Stay tuned. We might do that when I have some fun. But, but, no, but it's just that this, the kind of mindset, again, that as whenever someone like Trump has something that's failing is always, I'm going to blame someone else. And, you know, the idea, the numbers that I've researched are that Musk bought Twitter for roughly around 44 billion, and the current valuation is roughly around twelve and a half billion. And the reason why that those can be trusted numbers is because firms like fidelity investments are still shareholders in the private ex corporation. So they, as part of their own disclosures, because they're publicly traded, they produce.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: The valuation of their, but they believe.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: The value is of their investments they have. So, so the thing is, is that here's a guy that bought a company.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: You mean that's not just something that, you know, the state of New York made Trump do? Like, everybody has to do that.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Again, another show.
These guys are so prolific. They're just too much, I guess, for us to, you know, I don't know. I'm trying to stay focused here, which is rare for me. So don't, don't derail me here.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: I apologize.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: But it's just such a common thing, like, you know.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. No, but here's the thing. So he destroys the valuation of his own company that he bought by about 72% in, what, 18 months maybe, since he bought it. And so instead of, like, looking internally like someone like me or you, that owner that we're entrepreneurs and own our business, have to look in the mirror when things don't go well, he wants to lash out and blame everyone else. And that's why I said with even this, just, he's got Congress now. And think about it. He's the richest guy in the world that wants us all to know who he is, and he wants to control media and wants to control this and that. So, clearly, anyway, he's throwing his money around. Like, we remember he announced whether he's gonna do it or not, who knows? But he announced he's gonna give Trump $45 million a month until the election. So who knows what kind of money he's dangling in front of the Congress? People behind the scenes of, I'm gonna fund your campaign and, you know, I'll give you 10 million over here, just like his friend Peter Thiel funded JD Vance's Senate candidacy by 15 million or with $15 million. What's happening is these guys are oligarchs buying politicians. And what he did is he bought people on the Congress to have this sham, you know, investigation into this collusion and this anti trust stuff as a way to try and be careful.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: That's what it looks like.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Yeah, because. Because you know what? He doesn't want to have to deal with the fact that he drove his company into the ground and actually do the hard work and the heavy lifting to get it back to where it needs to be. Because I'll give Musk all the credit.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: In the world sessions that, hey, maybe the type of environment you said that you thought people wanted in that spot, actually, people just don't want, like.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Or the people that want it.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: I'll go ahead.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Can't afford to advertise in a way that keeps you propped up, like, yeah, like, maybe kid Rock and Hulk Hogan want to advertise on there, but they don't got deep pockets like Disney and Coca Cola. And Disney and Coca Cola don't want to be on a platform that has open anti semitism and racism and all that kind of stuff, period. And it's just, you know, I wonder if the Ku Klux Klan's gonna throw a lawsuit in that Disney doesn't advertise with them either.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: That'll be interesting if this.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely requires you to suspend a level of belief, though, because it, like. And this is the kind of, the last point I wanted to make is that musk kind of takes this antagonistic view towards, quote, unquote, the mainstream or even, I mean, he said, told these, tell the advertisers to go f, themselves, you know, all this. But he takes view and then turns around and says, well, why aren't all you guys throwing money at me? And it's like, well, I mean, aren't you antagonizing the same people that you're saying should be throwing money at you the whole time? And, you know, it, there's, it all goes back to this level of entitlement that some people walk around with, you know, like, and honestly, it does seem like a level of entitlement can be helpful in many respects and finding success depending on who you are and what you look like, at least. But a level of entitlement, like, the level of entitlement, like this lawsuit relies on the idea that Twitter or X is entitled to this money. And by denying him the advertisers paying this money, they are harming them, they are wronging them. And, you know, people banding together. I mean, again, it's laughable that these people would be a monopoly when it's one group amongst the thousands or millions of potential advertisers out there that have decided, hey, we just don't think we like to advertise in places where it would be non controversial. And if you want to be antagonistic and controversial, then that's probably not the place for us. And that's not something that from a, like a corporate, you know, sterilized, you know, branding standpoint is something that we've never heard of. Like, that seems pretty normal from the way corporations are operate, you know? And so to me, you know, like, you see the level of entitlement that somebody walks around with and then you see them. The problem with that, obviously, like, you can walk around entitled, but the problem with that is that the use of the government to the commandeering of the government to one man's entitlement. And so, yeah, you raised a good word there. You brought up a good word, oligarchy, in the sense that that's where we're going down a road, conceivably, potentially, where that's the kind of thing that is happening, basically, is you have the money, the might makes it right. Like, hey, if you have the money, you can make the government do this for you. Make the government do that for you. You can. Next thing you know, he'll be having the government, you know, do something to Facebook or having the government do something to TikTok so that he can get more of the users he's entitled to as well. And so this mentality is just very anti american, you know? And I mean, hey, maybe he didn't grow up with the same values that many Americans did, you know, because the guy grew up in a place that, you know, was, was not about american values. You know, he grew up in a.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Can I address that real quick?
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Well, we got it. We got a jump.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: But if, here's what I was going to say right there. I wrote it down. We got a south african guy in his fifties who grew up under the apartheid regime who has shown us that he's been supportive by reposting tweets about the great replacement theory and about, you know, things like, like eugenics.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: So I do think that, yeah, he wants a platform that is bigoted and is upset that most of american companies don't want to advertise on it. So you're right, James.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it's nothing. And there may be people at these companies that agree with him, maybe some that disagree with him or whatever, but it's just generally speaking, the big corporations in this country and around, you know, just when we see these big companies, they like to be in non antagonistic, non controversial spaces, you know, and they like business. Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Guys that say they're in the business and making money.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: That stuff doesn't make money. And he's losing money because of it.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: But that's like so, so, but no, but I think we can close this topic from there. We appreciate it for joining us. Join us for topic or, you know, we'll have a second topic coming up here shortly, and we'll see you then.
All right. Our second topic today, we want to look at the, you know, we've seen just, you know, like recent stories, and we'll have something in the, in the show notes on this, but just ice cube. And maybe he's taken a turn in terms of, you know, what, just his views on the world or the people he associates with and so forth, particularly pointing out, you know, just association with Tucker CArlson or, you know, figures like Joe Rogan and so forth, which I don't necessarily think is the same thing, but nonetheless, that point being made. So, tune, what are your thoughts on what we've seen lately, you know, from ice cube as far as, like, his interactions with people who, you know, may have been maybe, or may have been hostile to some of the things, you know, that he's talked about in his music or just that hip hop culture, you know, it kind of ascribes to or values.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Well, first, I want to second, what you said. Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson definitely are in the same sphere of B's. But, no, I think it's interesting, you know, Ice Cube has kind of this long arc of his life that I think has been very public because he began as a famous rapper with NWA when he was in his late teens. I think he was 18 or 19 when they had their first album. So we've got. We got a chance to watch a man mature, you know, grow up and learn and, you know, and when he.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Started, you know, he was, you know, you could say, you know, very, like a more radical, you know, like, nWa was not a status quo type of, you know, hey, we gotta change. We gotta change things.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: One of the things.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: To your point and all that.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: No, but I was joking with you just before we got on the record, just for the audience that, you know, I started going back listening to some of these old albums that I grew up with as a teenager, and it's true. I mean, look, NWA was the first group that got national attention for a song called f the police, remember? And they brought to the culture the idea that there was something going on in black communities as relates to policing and the unfair treatment and the lopsided treatment that blacks got in their communities by police versus how everyone else was treated outside the black community, which then the technology 30 years later by, you know, the last decade proved that, you know, that that was true. So. So in that sense, yeah, you're right. He was, I'll say the word, militant, but kind of for a reason. You know, he grew up in an environment having been exposed to this type of behavior and treatment of the lowest caste in our society, which is black Americans in the ghetto, and how they were treated by the system. And so, yeah, he had a chip on his shoulder, and he let me know real quick.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: I don't. I'll let you keep going. But the one thing, because you don't want to take away people like public enemy and stuff like that. So they weren't the only ones, but they were, like, the most antagonistic, you know, like, they were directly, you know, like, in your face and, you know, we're bringing the fight to you more than kind of, you know, some of the other groups were just kind of, I guess, less antagonistic. They were still speaking, you know, speaking the truth, the power, so to speak, but less so with the flipping, the bird and, you know, like a bunch of, you know, like, being very symbolic in terms of a real disdain and, you know, like, we're coming at you, coming at your throat.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a certain feeling of real, like, the word militancy and rebellion, you know? Yeah, yeah, like, that's the police, right?
[00:24:53] Speaker A: This is different. Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Like you said, public enemy was more political and obviously made, you know, their, their points and their message heard, but, yeah, nwa kind of just went in your face.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: The name of the group, you know, like, it was a complete antagonistic approach.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: To it and ends with attitude and meaning. And the n word with attitude is the name of the group was in 1988, I think was when the first album came out, was not something that, you know, the world had heard before, you know, so, so, yeah, so I think he is a great example of this kind of arc that we see in some artists. And I would say maybe not just artists, but people who have been in the limelight for the majority of their life and, you know, throwing it back to you. I mean, you do a great job observing people. Like, Kanye west is another example.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's just what it is, is we see a, you know, like, people who, when they come into the limelight, they have a certain kind of mindset, a view approach. And I don't think it's fair to say people have to stay, you know, where, wherever they are, that they have to stay there for the rest of their life or anything like that. Like, you expect people to grow and evolve, but it is interesting. And so I think this kind of raises what the first question this raised raises is like, okay, you know, like, we can't get into people's head. You know, it's like, so you're not going to say, oh, well, you know, does he now share the aligned view worldview with Tucker Carlson or something like that? You know, I'm not going to try to down that road. But let's say he. Let's say he is still pretty similar to where he was before. The question is, okay, is it wrong for him to meet with people he may disagree with or who may be hostile to some of the things that you are, you know, hold. Hold dear to yourself? Like, Tucker Carlson has not been one to condemn violence by the police against black people. Ice Cube has been one to speak out against that very aggressively, at least, you know, historically. So that kind of issue. So is there a problem if Cube goes on to his, you know, to his platform and brings eyeballs to Tiger Carson's platform? Or is Cube then expanding his own platform in that sense. So I think that's kind of the first thing we wrestle with is, should these silos remain separate, if, you know, assuming there are separate silos? And so that's the question. And then obviously there's the question of. Or there's the kind of interesting view of the changing of the potential changing of the man. And I, you know, we did a show, you know, a couple years back, you know, talking about the. The contract with black America that the cube was talking about. And, you know, and that's something that still indicates that he's still trying to at least take a mindset of, hey, what can we do better for black people? You know, where he's gone with that, though, may or may not be the same place that other people have gone with it. And so I think both of those issues are kind of separate issues. So, I mean, did you, you know, throw. I want to throw it back to you because I did want to get your thoughts on that first issue. Like, as far as is, should we be raising an eye when somebody goes out of their traditional kind of silo, or is that something we should encourage more?
[00:27:52] Speaker B: I don't know, man. It's a very good question because I think, like you said, we can't get inside of people's heads, and that's obviously would be the best thing if we could do that, because then we would know what that if they're genuine. If they've had a genuine change of heart. Because, I mean, look, this is one thing I want to be. You know, this is a good conversation because it's all nuanced people. People are allowed to change how they feel about things. And as we grow and learn and we're exposed to things, right? Like we talked about, we were fans of his music when we were young. And, you know, I was in high school, listen, all this stuff and all that, but at some point, I knew, okay, I'm not gonna live my life like that, right? And as I grew and as I evolved as a human being and a man, I don't behave. I mean, I used to use the n word in high school and calling my friends the n word. I haven't used the n word since I was 22 years old, and that was a conscious choice. So I went that direction in my life. Other people may go other directions. And so I think we should all be allowed to be given some space as human beings to, you know, that we mature, we change our ideas, our life experiences influence us and allow us to see things or not see things. So I think, like we said, you know, in this since the start, when someone's been in the public eye for so long, if someone has got famous in their teen years and now they're in their fifties, I mean, you know, we shouldn't expect that they're still acting like a teenager. But I do think you're right. To people maybe, like, mindsets like me and you, let's put it that way. Cause maybe ice cube doesn't think like us. I think that's where you and I, it's a bit of a dissonance we have to deal with. Like, hold on. You're the guy that brought the world the knowledge of what was going on in south central LA with the cops, which then was proven by the Rodney King beating and all the LA riots and stuff like that. And like you said, now you're kind of caucusing, it looks like, with people that don't really respect that conversation. Like, and they don't want to hold it.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: Like, not even. It might be worse than that. Like, actually might actively hold it with disdain or.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't even want to be discussed. They don't want it to be all that. Right. And. And that's why I said it reminds me a bit of Kanye west, which, you know, he was the guy in 2008 or whenever, 2006, whenever the Katrina happened, and he was on that.
That fundraiser thing, and he said, george Bush doesn't care about black people. Remember, it was a big.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: And there were a lot of things in his music for Kanye, same thing, like, a lot of things in his music that were specifically trying to relate or uplift, you know, or relate or kind of publish and talk about the struggle that black people faced and to try to make things so, I mean, he wasn't a apolitical rapper who then kind of became, you know, slanted to the right, like, political rapper on one side that then became a political actor on another side.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And, yeah. And becomes an anti semite and become basically a bigot himself. It's just interesting how. And now I think he's been a little bit more open that he, I think, has some genuine, you know, psychological and emotional disorders. I don't think. I mean, at least that hasn't been public about ice cube. He doesn't seem to have.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Well, I don't think it's fair to look for that. And when somebody kind of goes down a different path, I mean, to me, I think that the idea of talking.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: I'm just giving him an excuse if.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: He wants to trying to help.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Just.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: I think it's a more dangerous place to be to say that people should only stay in their silos. That's more dangerous than there is risk. When you go outside and you bring your audience to different people and so forth, there's a risk that you could be manipulated. There's a risk that you're being used, in a sense, in a way that may not be consistent with what you believe. But that risk, I believe, is less than the risk of everybody staying apart and not ever talking to people who they may disagree with. The other factor in that is, and this is one of the reasons why I would, I would draw a sharp line of distinction between, like, a Carlson and a Rogan, which, you know, like one of the people cite in the show notes. You know, like, I don't know if sharp, as sharp of the distinction is made, is that Rogan does not appear to be to the same degree as, like, a Carlson, a bad faith actor. Like Rogan seems to just kind of float around and be in a lot of different places, headspaces, you know, but he doesn't seem to be overtly against people in a way.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: He's not malicious.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Like, and Carl Carlson oftentimes comes off as malicious and in bad faith, you know, like, well, if this argument suits me here, I'll make it, and if it doesn't suit me here, I'll make the opposite argument because he's more so just advocating for a particular kind of worldview than any kind of fair application of rules or laws on people.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: So I think it's the russian worldview, it must be. Sorry.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: But so I do think that, you know, like, you can look at those a little differently. Like, when you go on and you're caucusing or dealing with someone who openly operates in bad faith, that's a heightened, even heightened risk than someone who you just may not disagree or you may not agree with on certain things. But nonetheless, like I said, I do believe, by and large, your rule of thumb should be go places where it may be outside of your comfort or outside of your silo, even if, you know, like, if you can have a cordial conversation outside of that, that's helpful overall, too, I think, because the real problem would be when no, people don't talk to each other anymore at all, you know, and everybody just becomes a caricature to other people, and then we start losing the humanity. So the other piece, though, on this, and you mentioned it in terms of the kind of seeing someone develop from a teenager to their fifties is the legacy piece. And so, you know, does this affect ice cube's legacy? And I asked that in the context of, like, compare, like, an ice cube to, like, a tupac, you know, like a tupac who also was very outspoken, you know, from a black people standpoint and trying to make sure they are trying to help black people get a more, you know, fair shake in the world. But he died young, and so he never got an opportunity to. For his stances and positions on things like that, to really evolve. Not to say that they would. We don't know if they would or if they wouldn't have. You know, he might have still been. I mean, he was kid of two black panthers, you know, so he may not have at all. Um, but we. His legacy is in our memory only, or hit. You know, it was only in our memory he didn't get a chance to change that, whereas Q has an opportunity as he continues, you know, he lives and himself evolves, changes, you know, whatever it is, he gets a chance to change how people see him and, you know, what people think about him and so forth. So that's, to me, very interesting. So, you know, what are your thoughts on how this kind of direction the cube may go could affect how people look at him now, but also look back at who he was in the past and the things he did in the past?
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely.
All this stuff has a chance to affect the way that we as a society view these characters in our lives. Right. The kind of, whether you call them celebrities or people that we've watched from the outside. And so I think, and I think naturally, just because of the way humans deal with things like nostalgia and the way we look at the past, generally with a little bit more rose colored glasses, and we tend not to. Things look a lot simpler when we look at them through our memory, through the rear view mirror. So I think it always, and I hate to say it like this, but it always helps someone's legacy, I think, more. So, I would say, on average, if you look, just compare different famous people and all that, if they. If they are kind of martyred at a younger age, because there's less of a chance through them living longer that they're gonna break the hearts of the people who like them when they were.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Younger, I think only in nostalgia and memory.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah, memory. And I think there's some. There's some very rare examples or maybe that, you know, someone living a full life, I can think of, like Nelson Mandela, that maybe his legacy actually was. Was grew even more as he got older. But actually, I can't think. I mean, he's the only one that comes to mind because other people have gotten killed, like Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy or other people.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: You know, like, that still continues to.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Come to mind right now. But I'm just saying, in general, if we look at especially people that were influential to a generation of youth, and that would be like, the tupacs and those types. Yeah, I think we get to, like. Like we just said at the beginning of the show, someone like me gets to remember Tupac the way I remember him from my high school days, because that's when he got killed.
And so I can go back to that when I listen to his music in my memory, and I only see him up to 1996. Yeah, but like you're saying, had he been alive till today, he might have said some dumb stuff in 2015 or in 2021, or maybe he had. He might have an opinion about the pandemic. I'd have disagreed with that might have been a little bit of a knock into how I look at him. And, you know, a good example would be just say, this is to have fun, and this is not threatening one.
I was a real big fan of Will Smith until he slapped Chris Rock on the stage. And I would say that, seriously, like.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's not even, like, hurt me. That just makes you look at him differently. Not.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Or like Scottie Pippen talking about Michael Jordan. Like, when people have done these things, it's like a notch. They're lower on the totem pole for me. Like, damn, you did that. But had, God forbid, Will Smith passed away, you know, some car accident or something in 2010, I might look at him fondly as man. He was one of the best actors ever in my lifetime.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: Now, I don't mean.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: And as time went on, might even, you continue to look more and more and more fond.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: You know, think about it.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: I don't look at him like that anymore. Knowing and my conscious mind that him slapping Chris Rock has nothing to do with his ability to be a great actor. Yeah, I just don't like him anymore for that. And that. That damaged him in my mind. Yeah. I think is. Yes.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Well, there was. I know, like, with the dark knight, they invested, or, you know, Batman talked about this, and then Jay Z picked up it as well. You know, just kind of that whole, it's better to die a hero than to live long enough to become the villain. And so that's what this kind of reminds me of, in that kind of sense. And not to, again, not to valorize or to say it's a good thing to die, you know, but just how. Yes, as if the book on you is continued to be written, then you know, how people see you can change and can change substantially. And it's not that it erases things that you've done in the past, but it may obscure things you've done in the past. And, you know, we saw a lot of that with the, when people were like the canceling, so to speak, and, you know, people that were still alive, a lot of times when things would come out about them, it was, it would hit differently than when people who had already passed, passed away. When things came out about them, it, you know, and this is the apples to apples thing, obviously something could come out that would be bad enough that even if you're dead, it would really knock you down some pegs. But it seemed like it was more kid gloves when somebody was dead. And people like, hey, you know, like, person's not there to defend themselves and all this other stuff. So, you know, like, it's, it's interesting from that standpoint. But again, obviously I would still say, you know, if it were me, I'd rather live and keep rolling the dice then, then to lock in with something and be like, all right, well, everybody's gonna see me like this from here on out.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: You know, maybe that's why Jeffrey Epstein hang himself.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. I can't believe you went there.
But I mean, I was thinking of those things, though. But let me, let me say this, though, and you kind of, I want to make sure this gets out, though. But, but some of it is unfair, you know, and it's like that because while you say, hey, we got to give people space to grow. And whether we consider it evolving or devolving, but we can't expect someone to stay the same as we remember them their whole life. Some of that is that expectation from fans or from people, you know, in the public is very unfair. And actually that is one of those things like, can you, can you observe something without changing it? We had another second week in a row. Now we're referencing quantum, you know, quantum physics, but that people have this expectation of you that you can't change. I wonder if that just people that are rebellious at heart, like somebody like ice Cube who's, you can look at him and say, yeah, that's a guy who was rebellious at heart. The expectations of people to stay the same could affect how that person grows and again, evolves, devolved, whatever you want to say, but changes, you know? But I think people have to have space to be able to do that. I mean, these are human beings, and you got to give them space to change. And then if you just start disagreeing with them at that point, then you got to live with that, you know, like, it's not like they're allowed. They don't have to stay a certain way so that you can be comfortable, so to speak.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that's why I agree with you. In the end, I'd rather see ice cube going on Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan than not. I mean, like I said, I got.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: That's what he wants to do.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've got no problem with Joe Rogan at all. But I do have a problem with a guy like Tucker Carlson, who to me is just, like you say, an active malicious disrupter of kind of narratives. And, and, and sometimes I wonder, you know, that's where I would wonder, to get an ice cube said, does he really know all about Tucker Carlson as he watched, the way he talks about certain things about George Floyd and try to make it out like that was a hoax, that the guy was killed by the cop that we all saw for eight minutes? Or did he, you know, because Ice Cube is a pretty, you know, well established guy with a, what, a team of agents and, you know, kind of handlers like most celebrities at his level have? Or was it that one of his handlers said, hey, man, this guy's a, you know, a very well known media guy in politics, and we think doing his show would be a good idea. And Ice Cube said, yeah, okay, I'll do a show. I mean, that's, to me, where I said, the mindset, like mine just kind of would wonder that, because that would affect how I feel about Ice Cube. Because if he just did this show, I'd be like, I give him a little pass. Like, all right, he doesn't know about this guy. If he watches Tucker Carlson's show every night, I would find it more intriguing. Like, how did you get from NWA to this? That's what I'm saying. It would be a little bit more of. That's intriguing. I'd like to learn more about that, how that, how that happened. So.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: But I think we can wrap this topic from there. We appreciate everyone for joining us on it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys, and we'll talk to you next time.
