On this episode Dave and Len welcome Dr. "Grouchy" Greg Watkins to discuss the 4th Annual Hip‑Hop Cultural Summit at the Delaware Art Museum, co‑founded with Iz Balleto. They cover the summit’s family‑friendly programming, graffiti and turntablism showcases, and how hip‑hop is being presented as a tool for healing, education, and community engagement.
The conversation also traces the origins of AllHipHop.com, early internet innovations in music reporting, and a surprising deep dive into the history of recorded sound and the Victrola. The show closes with local and national headlines, including a Six Flags rollercoaster tragedy and a debunked celebrity endorsement shared on social media.
00:12 --> 00:16 All right, y'all, get ready for another edition of News
00:16 --> 00:19 and Trends with your host Dave and
00:20 --> 00:20 Lynn.
00:30 --> 00:33 Welcome, welcome, welcome to News and Trends with Dave and Lynn.
00:34 --> 00:37 This is one of your hosts, Mr. Dave Coker, promoter,
00:37 --> 00:41 event planner, um, marketing specialist, and all-around good
00:41 --> 00:44 guy, hanging out with my partner, Mr. Leonard Young.
00:45 --> 00:49 And just want to remind everybody, you can always listen to
00:49 --> 00:52 us on the MBG Podcast Network where you can
00:52 --> 00:56 find us and a whole bunch of other great shows, um,
00:56 --> 01:00 that people, people would really enjoy if you tune into that channel.
01:00 --> 01:04 And then if you don't catch us on our regular nights of Tuesday
01:04 --> 01:08 nights at 8 o'clock, you can always hear the playback.
01:08 --> 01:12 Of course, we're on all the podcast channels, but you can hear the playback on
01:12 --> 01:17 the weekend on internet radio 105.1,
01:17 --> 01:21 um, 107.5 The Fever. I'm sorry. Um,
01:21 --> 01:25 and you can always listen to us at, at 10 o'clock
01:25 --> 01:29 AM on Saturday mornings on our playback
01:29 --> 01:33 on internet radio. All right, I'm hanging out with my partner,
01:33 --> 01:36 Mr. Leonard Young. What's going on, sir? Hey Dave, everything is good.
01:36 --> 01:39 This is Leonard Young, CEO of National Black Guide,
01:39 --> 01:43 DelawareBlack.com, Black media expert, all-around good
01:44 --> 01:47 guy. How goes it? Hey man, I'm all right.
01:47 --> 01:51 Um, First of all, you know, I just want to say,
01:51 --> 01:54 for those of y'all who've been under a rock and didn't know, Leonard just turned
01:55 --> 01:59 50, um, yesterday. Finally. Yeah, finally. The 5-0
01:59 --> 02:03 club. Yeah, the 5-0 club. You know, we can—
02:03 --> 02:06 you know, I can finally get rid of these last few cans of Similac that
02:06 --> 02:10 I've been holding on to because he, you know, because he has definitely
02:11 --> 02:14 been— you know, that stuff is expensive, man. I can't keep feeding them that stuff.
02:15 --> 02:19 I'm sure, I'm sure. Yeah, so, but I'm glad, I'm glad that you have
02:19 --> 02:23 finally joined the adult, the adult people's
02:23 --> 02:27 time now, man. You know, you finally reached that age. As DJ Tim Dogg
02:28 --> 02:31 say, the, the grown folks. There you go, there you go.
02:31 --> 02:34 But congratulations on having a great, um,
02:34 --> 02:37 birthday party too, man. That was, that was a lot of fun that you had
02:38 --> 02:40 over the weekend. Appreciate it. Um, shout out to, uh,
02:41 --> 02:45 Leonard's wife Yolanda for, and her crew for putting together a
02:45 --> 02:48 great a great, um, birthday party for my man Leonard.
02:49 --> 02:52 And also shout out to Oath 84,
02:52 --> 02:55 very nice. Um, my first time there,
02:55 --> 02:59 really enjoyed it. I gotta ask you though, did you ever talk to
03:00 --> 03:03 the brother about the thing on the wall, what that was all about?
03:04 --> 03:08 Hold on, what, what are we talking about? Because, uh, okay, he has,
03:08 --> 03:12 you know, the whole thing about Oath 84. Apparently the
03:12 --> 03:15 84 is a reference to the year 1984. Okay.
03:15 --> 03:19 Yeah. And there's a saying on the wall that he has in the place
03:19 --> 03:22 talking about, you know, that he was an athlete or something
03:22 --> 03:26 like that. He was an athlete and everything was going
03:27 --> 03:30 a certain way until the— until 1984, and that's
03:31 --> 03:34 when everything changed. Yeah, it was
03:34 --> 03:37 the— and I meant to ask you about it that night at the party,
03:37 --> 03:41 and I was like, do you know anything about this? Would they— Dave,
03:41 --> 03:45 every time I've been there, the, the drinks have been flowing, so I,
03:45 --> 03:48 I never, I never even noticed. I never—
03:49 --> 03:51 and Dave, Dave, I would not even be able to tell you a single thing
03:51 --> 03:55 on any of the 4 walls there at
03:55 --> 03:58 all. Okay, well, you— and you did have open bar that night,
03:58 --> 04:02 so— but what I will say, and, and my thought,
04:02 --> 04:06 and I mean, I guess it'll be a conversation, I was thinking '84
04:06 --> 04:09 was the year that he was born, but, um,
04:09 --> 04:12 well, no, no, he said that he was an athlete and everything.
04:13 --> 04:16 I mean, okay. Like where we were sitting, that wall directly
04:17 --> 04:21 in front of me had that written on it, okay? And I was like— and
04:21 --> 04:25 it was in gold letters, so I was like— but apparently the
04:25 --> 04:29 '84 is reference to something that changed in
04:29 --> 04:32 his life. So I guess we need to, you know— so that's a mystery right
04:33 --> 04:35 now. So I guess you have to find that out. So, gotcha. But anyway,
04:36 --> 04:40 but, um, you know, but it was a great time and, and, um,
04:40 --> 04:44 you know, really appreciated the invite, and it was good that you
04:44 --> 04:48 had your people come out and everything. So now, now you just gotta
04:48 --> 04:51 push on for the next 50 years. I know. Yep,
04:51 --> 04:54 try to live till 100. There you go,
04:54 --> 04:58 there you go. Um, and you'll be sitting there on your campground, just sitting
04:58 --> 05:01 there rocking a rocking chair, something like that. Yeah,
05:02 --> 05:05 something like that. Okay, all right,
05:05 --> 05:09 well We, uh, we're gonna go ahead and get into the show
05:09 --> 05:12 tonight since we have a, a,
05:13 --> 05:17 uh, well, I mean, I'm gonna let Leonard do the bios.
05:17 --> 05:22 I'm gonna— because so you guys will find out as soon as he gets into
05:22 --> 05:26 this bio who we have on with us tonight, because, you know, we got royalty
05:26 --> 05:30 in the building. So yeah, let's go, let's go. Yep.
05:30 --> 05:34 So, uh, Dave, today our guests are the founders of the,
05:34 --> 05:37 uh, 4th annual Hip-Hop Summit. That's going to be
05:37 --> 05:41 at the Delaware Art Museum coming up. So one of the
05:41 --> 05:45 guests couldn't make it, but that's Iz Bileto. And Iz Bileto
05:45 --> 05:49 is a Peruvian-born activist of Quechua
05:49 --> 05:53 lineage, cultural organizer, and cultural
05:53 --> 05:56 program manager at the Delaware Art Museum.
05:56 --> 06:01 His work centers on using art and culture to elevate indigenous
06:01 --> 06:05 communities, and historically marginalized
06:06 --> 06:10 populations. His initiatives include the museum's inaugural
06:10 --> 06:14 Powwow of Arts and Culture and exhibitions
06:15 --> 06:19 including Indigenous Faces of Wilmington and Living Indigenously.
06:20 --> 06:24 Biletto also co-founded the international hip-hop organization
06:24 --> 06:28 Guerrilla Republic and has been recognized for his work
06:29 --> 06:33 in activism, social justice, entertainment, and expanding
06:33 --> 06:36 access to the arts. And then his other
06:36 --> 06:39 co-founder, who we have with us today, is none other
06:39 --> 06:43 than the legendary Delaware— Delawarean
06:44 --> 06:46 Grouchy Greg Watkins. Dr.
06:47 --> 06:51 Grouchy Greg Watkins is a Newark, Delaware-raised entrepreneur,
06:51 --> 06:55 journalist, and co-founder of allhiphop.com.
06:56 --> 06:59 One of the pioneering digital platforms covering hip-hop culture.
07:00 --> 07:04 Launched in 1998 with Chuck Jigsaw
07:04 --> 07:08 Creekmore, AllHipHop has earned national recognition,
07:09 --> 07:13 while Greg has spent more than 25 years reporting on hip-hop
07:13 --> 07:16 and building opportunities in media, technology,
07:17 --> 07:19 advertising, and education.
07:20 --> 07:23 Greg has also maintained strong ties to Delaware,
07:23 --> 07:27 including mentoring students at Delaware State University. And previously
07:27 --> 07:31 covering Delaware artists, businesses, and events for
07:31 --> 07:35 the News Journal. In 2023, he partnered
07:35 --> 07:39 with the Delaware Art Museum to launch the Hip-Hop Cultural Summit,
07:39 --> 07:44 which has grown into an annual October event. So without
07:44 --> 07:47 further ado, we'd like to welcome Dr.
07:47 --> 07:50 Grouchy Greg Watkins. How you doing, sir?
07:51 --> 07:54 What's up? What's up, my brothers? How y'all doing? Yo, man,
07:55 --> 07:58 excuse me. Happy 50th. Oh, thank you. Thank you. You know,
07:58 --> 08:01 next year you got to give me the invite, you know what I mean?
08:01 --> 08:05 Yeah, yeah. Come out. I like to come out, you know. I know.
08:06 --> 08:09 Well, you know, it's funny, real quick, and, um,
08:10 --> 08:13 Dave will testify, the last 8 years
08:14 --> 08:17 I've been inside. I've been like inside the house, inside the room,
08:17 --> 08:21 inside the campground. So when I was doing my event, um, event,
08:22 --> 08:26 uh, list It was like afterwards it's all these people.
08:26 --> 08:29 I'm like, damn, I should have invited— so Gray, don't, don't worry.
08:29 --> 08:33 51, you there. It's all good, it's all good. You know,
08:33 --> 08:36 definitely. I, I did my 50th at Oath 84 too.
08:37 --> 08:40 Oh, did you really? Okay, okay. Wow. Okay, mine was
08:41 --> 08:44 at the other one though, not the— oh, the one downtown? Oh, further down,
08:44 --> 08:48 right? Ah, okay. Gotcha, gotcha. But yeah, I'm sure
08:48 --> 08:52 you had a great time and congratulations for crossing over. I know,
08:52 --> 08:56 the other side. All All right. So I
08:56 --> 08:59 guess to start off, so first we want to thank you for coming on the
08:59 --> 09:03 show and, you know, being able to explain to our listeners more about
09:03 --> 09:07 the Hip Hop Cultural Summit. But, you know, I guess
09:07 --> 09:11 to start off for people who may not be familiar, can you kind of
09:11 --> 09:15 tell us the story about allhiphop.com
09:15 --> 09:18 and how that got started? Yeah, absolutely. You know,
09:20 --> 09:23 I've known my partner Chuck Jigsaw Creekmore.
09:23 --> 09:26 We've known each other since high school. You know, I was best friends with his
09:26 --> 09:30 brother. He was best friends with my older sister. So we've known each other
09:30 --> 09:33 really our whole lives. Right. And,
09:34 --> 09:37 you know, I went to school for music business
09:38 --> 09:42 and audio engineering. He went to school for journalism
09:42 --> 09:46 and whatever else he majored in. And, you know,
09:46 --> 09:50 this whole time, I would say starting around 10th grade,
09:50 --> 09:54 I started getting into the recording studios out here.
09:54 --> 09:58 And working with local artists to put out their music and
09:59 --> 10:02 their records. So I had my first record label founded by— I was
10:02 --> 10:06 in like 11th, 12th grade. But I've always
10:06 --> 10:09 been into music. Like, if you ask my parents, in my house where
10:10 --> 10:13 I grew up, you know, my bedroom door had a suite number on it
10:14 --> 10:17 from the time I was in like 4th grade, you know, and it was a—
10:17 --> 10:20 my room was like a production studio, you know,
10:21 --> 10:24 I had equipment in there. And I had tape recorders
10:24 --> 10:28 and all these kinds of things. So this has been— and
10:28 --> 10:31 hip-hop has been a part of my life my
10:31 --> 10:35 entire life, right? So I was like, all right, I'm gonna go to school for
10:35 --> 10:38 music business since I'm in the studios now.
10:38 --> 10:42 I know how to work tape machines. I know how to do all the things
10:42 --> 10:45 in a studio. And I launched my first record
10:46 --> 10:49 label in 12th grade. You know, I put out a record by my brother
10:49 --> 10:53 in 1992. Early 1993.
10:54 --> 10:57 And I had an office on Main Street and,
10:57 --> 11:01 you know, all these things thinking that I was going to
11:01 --> 11:05 run a record label. In the process of
11:05 --> 11:09 the— in this whole process, at the same time around 1993,
11:09 --> 11:13 the internet was just starting to come online commercially.
11:13 --> 11:16 So AOL 1.0, dial-up,
11:16 --> 11:20 all those things. I realized when I put my record
11:21 --> 11:24 out that I could get my money back faster by
11:24 --> 11:28 selling it directly to people on the internet versus the way
11:29 --> 11:32 I was doing it, which was trying to get it distributed into record stores,
11:33 --> 11:37 waiting for somebody to buy it, blah blah blah blah blah. So my
11:37 --> 11:40 record label name was Oblique Recordings.
11:40 --> 11:44 Very hard to spell, right? It looks
11:44 --> 11:47 good on the record label. Yeah, right, right. Not very memorable, you know what I
11:48 --> 11:50 mean, in terms of having somebody remember it.
11:51 --> 11:54 So I was registering all kinds of domain names at this time
11:55 --> 11:58 around '90. Now we're up to probably about '95. And at
11:59 --> 12:02 this time, you know, you couldn't even put graphics on the internet. It was still
12:02 --> 12:05 like all text if you had a website. So anyway, I registered
12:06 --> 12:10 allhiphop.com and I was putting out records.
12:10 --> 12:13 There's records out floating around being traded on eBay
12:14 --> 12:17 with the All Hip Hop name on them because it was originally going to
12:18 --> 12:21 be a record label. I saw how much traffic was coming to AllHipHop.
12:23 --> 12:25 So I started changing it into, you know,
12:25 --> 12:28 news, rumors, features,
12:28 --> 12:32 adding stuff to it, you know, and I would put
12:32 --> 12:36 the artists that were on the label in the mix with this
12:37 --> 12:40 content to try to make these artists look, you know, more famous than they
12:41 --> 12:44 were. These were rappers like my younger brother and his group,
12:44 --> 12:48 the 49ers, in particular. Um, who went
12:48 --> 12:52 on to have a lot of great success around the world, specifically in Japan.
12:52 --> 12:56 But, uh, registered AllHipHop,
12:56 --> 12:59 and I quickly realized I'm not a journalist, you know.
13:00 --> 13:03 Uh, you know, and there needs to be something else
13:03 --> 13:07 happening. So I was always asking Chuck to design
13:07 --> 13:12 my flyers and give me the excerpts of interviews
13:12 --> 13:16 he might have been doing. I still got like early interviews on tape that he
13:16 --> 13:20 gave me with like Slick Rick and all these people. And he
13:20 --> 13:24 was like, you know what, we should just link up. He was doing
13:24 --> 13:28 something online as well called Tantrum Magazine with,
13:28 --> 13:31 um, his partner at the time, Steve Julian,
13:31 --> 13:34 Steve Rays, RIP, who also went to the University
13:35 --> 13:38 of Delaware. So anyway, Chuck was like, yo, we should just put these things together
13:39 --> 13:42 and do all hip-hop. And That was probably
13:43 --> 13:46 in early '98, maybe late '97, early '98.
13:47 --> 13:50 And we just took it from there. You know, we were the first ones
13:50 --> 13:54 to do daily rumors, daily news, you know,
13:54 --> 13:58 daily features. I mean, we just— I mean,
13:58 --> 14:01 we were early, but we really set it off. You know what I mean?
14:02 --> 14:05 Really did. Now, so I guess with that said,
14:05 --> 14:09 you know, when you were— let's say when you teamed up with Chuck,
14:10 --> 14:14 Would you have ever fathomed that the success
14:14 --> 14:18 and, you know, the appeal would have, you know, taken you how
14:18 --> 14:23 many years later? What were you, 30 years later, you know, till today
14:23 --> 14:26 and still being kind of just as relevant?
14:27 --> 14:31 Um, yes and no, right? I thought, you know,
14:32 --> 14:35 when broadband came— because remember when we started up,
14:35 --> 14:39 it was dial-up. Yeah. Oh yeah. And this is before cell phones
14:39 --> 14:42 or any of these things that we have now. None of that. It's hard.
14:43 --> 14:47 I know it's hard maybe for the listeners to imagine a world before
14:47 --> 14:50 cell phones, you know what I mean? But, you know, phones didn't
14:51 --> 14:55 really start popping the way they are now until about 2008. We obviously
14:55 --> 14:59 had phones. I had my first brick phone in, you know,
14:59 --> 15:03 1994. I was walking around with a big old cell phone, you know,
15:04 --> 15:08 the size of literally a brick, you know. So the
15:08 --> 15:11 phones have always been around, but not in the manner that they are now.
15:11 --> 15:15 So to answer the question, the answer is yes and
15:15 --> 15:19 no, right? Yes, in that we knew hip-hop
15:19 --> 15:23 culture was going to be something that was going to be big,
15:23 --> 15:26 and that the— excuse me, that hip-hop culture was something that was already
15:27 --> 15:30 big, and that the internet was going to help speed up
15:30 --> 15:33 the flow of information around the world.
15:33 --> 15:37 And maybe the people, or most likely the people who,
15:38 --> 15:42 you know, wanted American hip-hop, like around the world, right?
15:43 --> 15:47 Did I expect to still be doing it 30 years later? Definitely not.
15:47 --> 15:51 You know, there were different inflection
15:51 --> 15:54 points where we could have had an exit, or,
15:55 --> 15:59 you know, there were certain types of deals in front of us that we just
15:59 --> 16:03 couldn't, we couldn't do them for one reason or another, right?
16:03 --> 16:07 Most of the times because the money wasn't right, or the
16:08 --> 16:11 offer didn't match the long-term vision
16:12 --> 16:15 that we had for the brand. You know, if you look at some of the
16:16 --> 16:19 brands that are no longer around, and who they
16:19 --> 16:23 sold to, those brands are dead. They've been killed. You know, and we were like,
16:23 --> 16:26 nah, you know, we don't— we want AllHipHop to last.
16:26 --> 16:29 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years,
16:30 --> 16:33 Lord willing, if the world is still, you know, hasn't blown up by
16:34 --> 16:36 then, right? And, and you, like, I'll tell you, it's funny you said it because,
16:36 --> 16:39 like, one of the things I was thinking about, like, my follow-up question was going
16:40 --> 16:43 to be, you know, what made AllHipHop different
16:44 --> 16:47 than some of the other brands, which you kind of just explained. Because I always
16:47 --> 16:50 think of, like, BET, you know, like, once Bob Johnson kind of— and I
16:51 --> 16:54 mean, I know he had investors and stakeholders, But once he stole BET,
16:56 --> 16:59 the content started changing. And it's so funny,
16:59 --> 17:01 I was reading something online the other day.
17:03 --> 17:06 Greg, Dave, I don't even know what channel BET is
17:06 --> 17:09 on my TV. In fact, I don't even know BET is a channel.
17:11 --> 17:14 BET is not in my thought pattern anymore. And I think that just kind
17:14 --> 17:19 of goes to show with if that long-term vision isn't solid
17:19 --> 17:22 and kind of based on what's expected, you know, it just
17:23 --> 17:26 kind of falls off. Yeah, you know, uh,
17:26 --> 17:28 so to answer that question,
17:30 --> 17:33 the thesis behind All Hip Hop is hip-hop culture,
17:34 --> 17:37 right? And over the years,
17:38 --> 17:41 hip-hop culture is now many different things,
17:41 --> 17:44 right? You know, different styles of hip-hop,
17:45 --> 17:48 reality TV now. And, you know, all of
17:48 --> 17:53 those things kind of encompass hip-hop fashion, high fashion,
17:53 --> 17:56 you know, dancing, art, like it's all
17:56 --> 17:59 part of it. And so for us, it's,
18:00 --> 18:03 you know, been— we've been able to expand with
18:03 --> 18:05 the culture, you know. Um,
18:06 --> 18:10 the other thing is, is what differentiated us and what differentiates
18:10 --> 18:14 us still to this day is, you know, We have
18:14 --> 18:17 always embraced technology. So the
18:18 --> 18:20 main thing that separated us, especially from, say,
18:20 --> 18:24 '99 till about the real penetration
18:25 --> 18:27 of the iPhone in particular,
18:28 --> 18:32 was we had a news alert service
18:33 --> 18:36 that delivered SMS messages to
18:36 --> 18:39 people's two-way devices. Right?
18:39 --> 18:43 And we had everybody's address, friends of mine in
18:43 --> 18:49 the industry who were DJs, friends of mine who were artists,
18:49 --> 18:52 they would empty out their, their 2-way device
18:53 --> 18:56 numbers to me. And I would add them to the AllHipHop news alerts.
18:56 --> 19:00 And we would deliver these alerts to people every day. And it was the first
19:01 --> 19:04 time in hip-hop culture that people were getting the news
19:05 --> 19:08 as it was happening, right? It had never happened this fast before.
19:08 --> 19:12 So You know, Jay-Z always— well, not always,
19:12 --> 19:16 but he's told the story about how, you know, when he
19:17 --> 19:22 was involved in that stabbing with Lance Rivera, how people
19:22 --> 19:24 got the news about it as he was walking out of the club, right?
19:25 --> 19:28 That's because we had people in the club who told us
19:29 --> 19:33 what was happening, and we could then spread this information out
19:33 --> 19:37 as it was happening, damn near in real time. Right. So that
19:37 --> 19:41 was really a differentiator for us and a force
19:42 --> 19:46 multiplier because everybody wanted to get these news alerts. So the
19:46 --> 19:49 more people that received them, the more people that wanted to sign up for them.
19:49 --> 19:53 And that really took our brand to another
19:53 --> 19:57 level. I mean, now, you know, when people talk
19:57 --> 20:00 about hip-hop and hip-hop on the internet and hip-hop history,
20:01 --> 20:05 this is one of the big things that always comes up
20:05 --> 20:09 is AllHipHop's news alert service and how it
20:10 --> 20:13 transformed the delivery of hip-hop information.
20:14 --> 20:18 It was a, it was a fun time, man, because I could get
20:18 --> 20:22 messages back from people. You know, I had a whole system set up. And you
20:22 --> 20:26 have to understand this too, that we
20:27 --> 20:30 started this service around 1998. Early '99.
20:31 --> 20:34 SMS as an invention
20:35 --> 20:37 was invented in 1993. You know,
20:38 --> 20:41 so this was only 5 years after
20:41 --> 20:45 the invention of SMS and text
20:46 --> 20:49 messaging. You know what I mean? So it's when you
20:49 --> 20:52 look back, when I look back at that and think,
20:52 --> 20:56 you know, how we were using it, it's just, it's just an, it's an incredible
20:56 --> 21:00 story. You know, yeah, no, it is. And well, you know, it's funny when you're
21:00 --> 21:03 saying it, it kind of makes me think of— and I mean, I'm just comparing
21:03 --> 21:07 to now times— almost like the first version of
21:07 --> 21:11 social media. Because, you know, now it's like, okay, breaking news, you know,
21:11 --> 21:14 most people aren't going to the TV, the radio, like they're going to social media
21:15 --> 21:18 for it. So yeah, we've been labeled, we've been labeled
21:19 --> 21:22 as the first social media. Jadakiss is on record in an interview saying
21:23 --> 21:26 AllHipHop was the first form of social media because
21:27 --> 21:30 of those messages. And we had a community.
21:30 --> 21:34 So we've, we've had a community on AllHipHop for 30 years,
21:34 --> 21:38 you know, where people come in, they log in, they post, they drop
21:38 --> 21:41 their music in, they go back and forth, they argue, they battle.
21:42 --> 21:46 Like, we've, we've had that for years. Uh, we're just
21:46 --> 21:50 obviously, you know, not at the same scale as Meta and Facebook
21:51 --> 21:55 and Instagram, but we're there. Got you.
21:56 --> 21:59 All right, so of course this Saturday, October 17th,
21:59 --> 22:03 at the Delaware Art Museum from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM
22:03 --> 22:07 is the 4th Annual Hip-Hop Cultural Summit.
22:08 --> 22:11 For anyone who has not been to the summit or is not familiar
22:11 --> 22:15 with it, can you kind of explain what it is and
22:15 --> 22:19 what people should expect when they attend? Yes,
22:19 --> 22:24 absolutely. So first and foremost, for everybody that's listening, it's a family-friendly
22:24 --> 22:28 event. All ages are welcome. It's free and open to the public,
22:28 --> 22:32 and it's at the Delaware Art Museum. Okay, we— when,
22:32 --> 22:36 when, when Brother Iz and I sat down 4 years
22:36 --> 22:40 ago, it was the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and it was also
22:40 --> 22:44 AllHipHop's 25th anniversary. And I approached
22:44 --> 22:49 him and said, look, you know, I think that hip-hop culture
22:49 --> 22:53 needs to be celebrated. It's an art form. Why shouldn't
22:53 --> 22:57 we have an event at the art museum? I'm also on the State
22:57 --> 23:01 Council for the Arts here in Delaware. So I have
23:02 --> 23:05 a bird's eye view of, you know, the different kinds of events that are happening
23:05 --> 23:09 around the state. And I was like, yeah, you know,
23:09 --> 23:12 if if the museum will allow it,
23:13 --> 23:17 this could be a very new and unique type of experience
23:17 --> 23:21 that could bring a whole new audience to the
23:21 --> 23:25 art museum. And thankfully, thanks to
23:25 --> 23:28 Iz and Molly Giordano, who, uh, is the director
23:29 --> 23:32 of the Delaware Art Museum, they were very open and
23:32 --> 23:36 receptive to the idea. And you have to understand, this isn't a rap concert.
23:36 --> 23:40 The whole concept of this event is to display
23:40 --> 23:44 hip-hop culture as a high form of art, which we all
23:45 --> 23:48 know it is, but some people don't know that, you know. And so
23:48 --> 23:52 every discipline, every element of hip-hop is represented.
23:53 --> 23:57 We have, um, the Ladies of Hip-Hop, an all-female b-girl
23:57 --> 24:01 crew who comes in and breakdances. This year we have DJ Supreme,
24:02 --> 24:05 DMC world champion turntablist who's gonna give a
24:05 --> 24:10 turntable exhibition. We've got a rap battle based
24:10 --> 24:15 on social justice and activism between 12 and 15-year-olds
24:15 --> 24:19 who are working with Brother Richard Raw at the Cultural
24:19 --> 24:23 Restoration Project, his new school that's breaking
24:23 --> 24:26 ground actually Thursday in Wilmington.
24:27 --> 24:30 And they have to battle about social justice topics that
24:30 --> 24:34 they pull out of a hat. So they're not battling each other in
24:34 --> 24:37 the form of like, you know, maybe what people know of as a
24:37 --> 24:41 traditional rap battle. They're battling social justice
24:41 --> 24:44 issues. Right. And then we have this year,
24:44 --> 24:47 we have Cornbread, Darryl Cornbread McCray.
24:49 --> 24:52 Cornbread is universally recognized as the founding
24:52 --> 24:56 father of graffiti writing, you know, and he's
24:56 --> 25:00 from Philadelphia. He's going to tell his story about his career in arts
25:01 --> 25:04 and how his art actually helped launch the
25:05 --> 25:09 Philadelphia Mural Project, which has now become the biggest— Philly
25:09 --> 25:12 is the mural capital of the world. So his
25:13 --> 25:15 art and his, you know, what he created,
25:16 --> 25:20 you know, 30, 40, 45, 50 years later,
25:20 --> 25:25 well, he was first recognized in Time Magazine in 1968 before
25:25 --> 25:29 what we, you know, peg as the birth of hip-hop.
25:30 --> 25:33 August 11th, 1973. So hold on
25:34 --> 25:36 real quick. So you said he was recognized in 1968?
25:37 --> 25:40 1968 in Time magazine. Wow.
25:40 --> 25:44 You know, and he's from Philadelphia, and he's being interviewed
25:44 --> 25:48 by the founder of the Graffiti Museum
25:49 --> 25:52 in New York City. He's going to be the one doing the fireside chat with
25:52 --> 25:56 Cornbread. And most people say hip-hop
25:56 --> 26:00 was born in New York City, and it was, you know, some of it
26:00 --> 26:03 was, but hip-hop has come from all over.
26:03 --> 26:07 And Philadelphia is the rightful place for
26:07 --> 26:10 the birth of the graffiti movement in hip-hop culture.
26:10 --> 26:15 So they're coming to tell that story. And then of course, we've got Chuck
26:15 --> 26:17 D, co-founder of Public Enemy,
26:18 --> 26:21 Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, right? You know,
26:21 --> 26:25 an artist, a visual artist as well. And he's going to come
26:25 --> 26:29 and talk about, you know, his journey as an activist and, you know,
26:29 --> 26:31 his journey using his art.
26:33 --> 26:37 Gotcha. Okay. And then so I guess, so of
26:37 --> 26:38 course it's a free event.
26:41 --> 26:44 And so since art is kind
26:44 --> 26:47 of like the main focus is at the Delaware Art Museum. And, you know,
26:47 --> 26:51 I thought it was a good point you made too, because I feel like here
26:51 --> 26:55 in Delaware, I will say maybe the last 5 or 6
26:56 --> 27:00 years, I feel like the Delaware Art Museum has been really open to
27:00 --> 27:04 cultural events and they've kind of been working with the community because,
27:04 --> 27:07 and I don't know if Dave feels the same way,
27:07 --> 27:10 but growing up, I don't think I had ever been to
27:11 --> 27:15 Delaware Art Museum. We might have gone on a school trip,
27:15 --> 27:17 but we might not have.
27:18 --> 27:22 But to take it back to the event, so of course, you and
27:22 --> 27:25 Iz come from different backgrounds,
27:26 --> 27:30 but you both share the same connection between culture,
27:30 --> 27:33 activism, hip-hop, community.
27:36 --> 27:41 What do you think is the benefit of your and Iz's
27:41 --> 27:45 collective unity
27:45 --> 27:49 in this event? Yeah, it's a great question. Well,
27:49 --> 27:53 to backtrack before I answer real quick, you're absolutely
27:53 --> 27:57 right about the museum being open to different types of programming.
27:57 --> 28:01 They— and, you know, I felt the same way you felt
28:01 --> 28:05 for a long time. Are we even welcome in these spaces, in these
28:05 --> 28:08 museums? You know, you don't— sometimes when you go into a museum,
28:09 --> 28:12 you don't— you do not see the reflection of yourself or
28:13 --> 28:17 your community. And so the museum has been very intentional about
28:17 --> 28:22 trying to change that narrative and bringing in younger
28:22 --> 28:27 people to experience art and the art that they have there. Because outside
28:27 --> 28:31 of what we do there, you know, they have, you know, these amazing
28:31 --> 28:35 exhibitions that take place that are really
28:35 --> 28:38 just mind-blowing. You know, and the,
28:39 --> 28:42 the, the, what they are programming is for us is,
28:42 --> 28:46 is my point. Um, and so when
28:47 --> 28:50 it comes to, uh, Iz and I working together, you know,
28:52 --> 28:57 we both share the view that hip-hop
28:57 --> 29:00 culture should be used as a tool to help
29:01 --> 29:05 promote peace, and healing in our communities.
29:05 --> 29:09 Okay. When you look at the harm
29:09 --> 29:14 that our young people have suffered due specifically
29:14 --> 29:16 to social media. Right. Right.
29:17 --> 29:21 And this isn't some random accusation
29:21 --> 29:25 that we are making against social media. Mark Zuckerberg
29:26 --> 29:29 and Meta just settled for, I don't know, $5 billion.
29:30 --> 29:34 With every state in the United States, with every single
29:34 --> 29:38 one of them. And they're all getting money just like a
29:38 --> 29:43 tobacco settlement in the early 2000s due
29:43 --> 29:47 to the harm that social media has caused, the mental harm social
29:47 --> 29:51 media has caused by design. They were found guilty
29:51 --> 29:54 and had to pay this money out. They're not doing it out of charity.
29:55 --> 29:58 The Surgeon General is going to put a warning on social
29:59 --> 30:03 media apps the same way cigarette cartons have warnings on
30:03 --> 30:08 them about the danger it's going to pose to your health. So we
30:08 --> 30:11 know that our young people are in a mental health crisis.
30:12 --> 30:15 And while hip-hop culture may not be the end-all be-all,
30:16 --> 30:19 we do know, and it has been, it has been proven
30:20 --> 30:24 that we can use these disciplines to help our young people
30:24 --> 30:28 express themselves, to help our young people express their anger and their
30:28 --> 30:31 frustration, to help them get into a
30:32 --> 30:34 pathway through the arts into education,
30:35 --> 30:38 into literacy. It helps with all of these
30:39 --> 30:43 disciplines. And so there needs to be safe spaces for
30:44 --> 30:48 our young people to practice this without old—
30:48 --> 30:51 an older generation having fear of them.
30:51 --> 30:54 The bigger fear is having them out on the streets popping off their guns at
30:55 --> 30:59 everybody, right? And that's what they're doing because there's no safe
30:59 --> 31:02 space for them to express themselves. And again,
31:02 --> 31:06 it may not be the answer for everything, but it's
31:06 --> 31:09 part of a solution. And one last thing,
31:10 --> 31:14 you know, the, the medical industry
31:15 --> 31:17 is now prescribing art for people,
31:18 --> 31:23 you know. And so one of the examples I've been using is
31:23 --> 31:27 the DDOA, the Delaware Division of the Arts, has a program called
31:27 --> 31:30 Creative Veterans. And they send people
31:31 --> 31:34 into the VFW halls and they work with veterans who
31:34 --> 31:37 have come back from war or have been in, you know,
31:38 --> 31:41 you know, military, in the military.
31:42 --> 31:46 And they work with them and they do visual arts and all those things.
31:46 --> 31:50 And what I'm saying is, is if they
31:50 --> 31:54 are using art to help our veterans with post-traumatic
31:55 --> 31:58 stress disorder, we can use it to help our young people
31:59 --> 32:02 help cope with their mental health. And so that is
32:02 --> 32:06 the overarching goal of these summits. We have
32:06 --> 32:10 17 different artists who are going to be showcasing their work on
32:10 --> 32:14 the walls. It's called Walls of Resistance, and these are all aerosol
32:14 --> 32:18 artists, graffiti artists who have donated their work,
32:18 --> 32:22 and it's going to be incredible. But the point is,
32:22 --> 32:26 is that we both believe in the healing power of hip-hop.
32:26 --> 32:29 It was founded to stop the violence.
32:30 --> 32:34 Hip-hop culture was literally founded with a gang
32:34 --> 32:38 truce between the Black Spades, the Ghetto Brothers, and other gangs
32:38 --> 32:40 that were fighting amongst each other in the Bronx.
32:41 --> 32:45 And say, hey, instead of fighting, we can battle each other through dancing
32:45 --> 32:48 and rapping and rhyming. And, you know, you have a whole culture born
32:48 --> 32:53 of that. And so we want educators and
32:53 --> 32:57 people of a certain age who work with our young people to
32:57 --> 33:01 come and experience this and walk away with
33:01 --> 33:05 maybe a different vision of how to interact with young people and
33:06 --> 33:08 young students. And Sorry, I know there's been a long diatribe,
33:08 --> 33:11 but— Oh, no, no, no, no. Let me say one last thing.
33:12 --> 33:15 You know, Delaware, right? And many states,
33:15 --> 33:18 but I'm using Delaware in particular because this is where I'm from. Like I said,
33:18 --> 33:22 I'm on the State Council for the Arts. I'm down at Legislative Hall all the
33:22 --> 33:25 time. There's an arts and caucus, arts and,
33:26 --> 33:30 arts and entertainment caucus that convenes usually once a quarter.
33:31 --> 33:34 We sit with our lawmakers and we try to inform
33:34 --> 33:38 them, meaning the Delaware Division of the Arts, the Delaware
33:39 --> 33:44 Arts Alliance, other stakeholders, and we try to inform them about what
33:45 --> 33:49 legal frameworks need to be being set up to
33:50 --> 33:54 help the students get into this pathway
33:54 --> 33:57 through the arts. It's one of the reasons why we've got a film industry popping
33:57 --> 34:01 up now. It's one of the— it's another reason why Now
34:01 --> 34:05 students who are graduating in Delaware, they can graduate and
34:05 --> 34:10 on their diploma they can have an arts certificate, an arts seal
34:10 --> 34:14 to go along with their diploma that shows maybe a future
34:14 --> 34:17 employer or the next level of school that they're
34:18 --> 34:22 going to go to that they went through a discipline for
34:23 --> 34:27 arts in the school. And the arts are more than just playing instruments
34:27 --> 34:31 or painting, you know, and the state is recognizing
34:31 --> 34:35 this creative economy and starting to make this framework for
34:35 --> 34:39 the young— for young people to be in this particular pipeline.
34:40 --> 34:44 And so we're trying to say hip-hop culture
34:44 --> 34:47 is one of the tools you can use to put the students into this
34:47 --> 34:51 pipeline and keep them there. They're more interested in hip-hop
34:52 --> 34:54 and fashion than anything else.
34:56 --> 34:59 Yeah, no, and, you know, I definitely agree. I think you made a great point
34:59 --> 35:04 when you talked about, you know, we're offering a lot of services to the veterans,
35:05 --> 35:08 but, you know, we're, we're missing the mark with a lot of our young
35:08 --> 35:12 people who, um, are very talented,
35:12 --> 35:16 very passionate. You know, they're taking initiative,
35:16 --> 35:19 but we're not kind of giving them the right resources that they can,
35:20 --> 35:23 you know, uh, that kind of makes it beneficial for them on what they're looking
35:23 --> 35:26 to do as well. So I definitely agree with that.
35:26 --> 35:29 Right. And, you know, when you look at a place like Seaford, and I'm talking
35:29 --> 35:33 about Delaware because this is where— but you look at Seaford, Dover,
35:33 --> 35:36 Wilmington, you know, these places that have, you know,
35:36 --> 35:39 hotspots of violence, you don't have to
35:39 --> 35:43 be a victim of the violence to be
35:43 --> 35:46 traumatized by it. Oh, that's true. You know, so when you
35:47 --> 35:50 think about all of what that
35:50 --> 35:54 statement entails, and just how many of our young people are actually
35:54 --> 35:58 walking around with PTSD because of the environment they
35:58 --> 36:02 live in. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny you say that,
36:02 --> 36:04 and I'll just make it real quick. I know Dave has some questions too.
36:05 --> 36:08 Um, I know at one point I was watching the documentary on PTSD, uh,
36:08 --> 36:12 PTSD, and they said there's
36:13 --> 36:16 something called secondary PTSD,
36:16 --> 36:19 where secondary just means if you're and
36:19 --> 36:23 let's say in a relationship or you're close to someone who has
36:23 --> 36:26 PTSD, you know, they can
36:27 --> 36:30 kind of transfer some of them symptoms to you because, you know, what they go
36:30 --> 36:33 through, you kind of go through, you know. So secondhand
36:33 --> 36:37 smoke. Yep, yep, yep. All right, well, um, I, I know Dave
36:37 --> 36:40 has some, some questions. He's probably going to ask you about Imitation of Life.
36:40 --> 36:43 Have you ever seen Imitation of Life, the movie? Stop it. Okay,
36:44 --> 36:49 I think so. Okay, good. All right,
36:50 --> 36:53 he set you up. He set you up for that. He really did. No,
36:53 --> 36:57 no, because Dave always asks our guests if he's seen— No, you always ask.
36:57 --> 37:00 No, no, no, no. Well, Dave used to always ask our guests if, if they've
37:01 --> 37:04 seen this movie, a black and white movie with, with no words—
37:05 --> 37:08 I mean, no sound, just words. And he always makes it
37:09 --> 37:12 sound like I'm, I'm young because I haven't seen it. So every guest we have
37:12 --> 37:17 on, that's the question I always ask. But, and, and a lot of times people
37:17 --> 37:20 say they've seen it, but that's another story. But we're not gonna— we're not gonna
37:20 --> 37:23 comment on that. You're always starting stuff anyway.
37:25 --> 37:28 Um, um, I'm sitting here and I've been listening the
37:28 --> 37:32 whole time, you know, because I try not to interrupt Leonard because he,
37:32 --> 37:37 he'll lose his train of thought. Um, you know,
37:38 --> 37:41 so, oh, that being 50, that's what happened. Yeah, that's what happened. Believe me,
37:42 --> 37:46 I know. I already know. So Um, but one
37:47 --> 37:49 of the things you just said, and it's funny because we're talking about Delaware and
37:50 --> 37:53 we're talking about, you know, especially with the ties to Delaware,
37:53 --> 37:57 um, and you, you know, we were all talking prior to coming,
37:57 --> 38:00 starting the show about how Delaware has
38:01 --> 38:04 become pretty hot, you know, with a lot of talent and so
38:04 --> 38:09 forth. We got talents in all areas, you know. We talked about Aubrey
38:10 --> 38:12 Plaza and couple, you know, Ryan Phillippe, you know,
38:13 --> 38:16 people have been around for a while. Uh, the young lady I forgot to mention,
38:16 --> 38:19 um, that did, um, Wakanda Forever, um,
38:20 --> 38:24 and Lionheart, um, the Black young actress,
38:24 --> 38:28 uh, Dominique something. Dominique, yeah. Uh, I can't think of her last name,
38:28 --> 38:32 but anyway, you know, we had people coming out of Delaware
38:32 --> 38:35 left and right in all the arts, really. I mean,
38:36 --> 38:39 Yeah, there you go. Dominique Thorne. That is correct. Thank you for that.
38:41 --> 38:44 But, you know, she popped in my head as we were— as I was listening
38:44 --> 38:48 to you guys. So we've gotten to the point that, you know, we are
38:48 --> 38:52 touching different avenues, different aspects
38:52 --> 38:56 of art. And, you know, Leonard is correct. You know, the Delaware
38:56 --> 38:59 Art Museum, I think I've been in there once,
39:00 --> 39:03 you know, before. And then a couple of years ago,
39:04 --> 39:07 you know, they started doing things over there with music and so forth. And I
39:07 --> 39:10 said, okay, well, they're starting to open up
39:11 --> 39:14 things over there. And, and I went over to a couple of events for that.
39:14 --> 39:18 So I'm glad to hear that we have these
39:18 --> 39:22 type of events going on, especially with
39:22 --> 39:25 you two bringing the consciousness that
39:26 --> 39:29 is needed because we have a lot of talent here. And we have
39:30 --> 39:34 a lot of young talent in all avenues. I mean, I was
39:34 --> 39:38 somewhere one time in a store and this
39:38 --> 39:43 kid was in the store just humming a song and
39:43 --> 39:46 his tone was impeccable. And I was like, God,
39:46 --> 39:50 he's just humming this song, you know, and he's not singing it,
39:50 --> 39:54 he's just humming it. And he was— his pitch was perfect. So I said something
39:54 --> 39:56 to his mom and his mom I said,
39:59 --> 40:02 can he sing? And she said, can he sing?
40:03 --> 40:07 Like that. And I said, well, what, what's, you know, is he planning on using
40:07 --> 40:09 his voice or whatever? And she said,
40:11 --> 40:12 he's— he wants to play athletics.
40:15 --> 40:18 He plays basketball, he plays football. And I said, so he's not even using his
40:18 --> 40:22 voice in, in a way that, you know, could be
40:23 --> 40:26 something career-wise? She said, you know what it is,
40:26 --> 40:30 you know, TV influences everything,
40:30 --> 40:34 the internet influences everything, and he only sees
40:34 --> 40:37 the, the fame and, you know,
40:38 --> 40:42 you know, being an athlete gets all the girls, you know, this is
40:42 --> 40:46 all he's seeing. So he hides the fact that he sings.
40:46 --> 40:50 So when you talk about the When you were talking about the PTSD
40:51 --> 40:55 moment just then and the secondhand PTSD that Leonard brought up,
40:55 --> 40:59 when you think about the trauma and all of
40:59 --> 41:03 the stuff that comes along with social media and so forth and how it influences
41:03 --> 41:07 the kids, you know, how would you approach— you
41:07 --> 41:11 or Iz approach a kid like this who obviously
41:11 --> 41:15 has talent? Because I'm telling you, this kid, he stopped me in my tracks.
41:16 --> 41:19 And I'm, you know, I'm, um, Leonard can tell you I've worked with
41:19 --> 41:22 many of the local musicians here in Delaware.
41:23 --> 41:26 I used to manage the Best Kept Soul. I've done a lot here in Delaware,
41:27 --> 41:30 um, and I've been underground with it, but I've done it.
41:31 --> 41:33 So I know talent when I hear it, especially when it comes to music.
41:34 --> 41:37 And this kid stopped me in my tracks and I was like,
41:39 --> 41:42 yeah, he doesn't want to do anything with it. So how would you guys approach—
41:42 --> 41:45 how would you guys approach somebody like that? Well,
41:45 --> 41:48 let me, let me answer this in 2 parts. Okay.
41:49 --> 41:52 Part one is you are right about the
41:52 --> 41:56 sports angle. One of the things that
41:57 --> 42:01 was surfaced in the Arts and Culture, Arts and Entertainment
42:01 --> 42:05 Caucus down at Legislative Hall in Dover,
42:05 --> 42:10 a lot of the educators were talking about the disparity
42:10 --> 42:14 of investments in sports and
42:14 --> 42:17 nothing going into their arts programs.
42:18 --> 42:22 And so the lawmakers in the state are very
42:22 --> 42:26 aware of that now. And they
42:27 --> 42:30 are— there is a long-term plan that is being enacted
42:31 --> 42:34 that will start coming to fruition.
42:34 --> 42:38 I think it's 2029 or 2030. You know,
42:39 --> 42:43 when it starts to be enacted to have
42:44 --> 42:49 more of a fair investment
42:49 --> 42:53 and equity in the arts and not all
42:53 --> 42:56 of it being so sports-centric. Okay.
42:57 --> 43:00 Not to say the sports isn't important. You know, no sports people
43:00 --> 43:03 don't need to get out of the chat. You know, we're not trying to take
43:04 --> 43:07 nothing from you. But there are other things to invest
43:08 --> 43:11 in. And I think you start— you're starting to see that with the
43:11 --> 43:16 film industry that's popping up. I mean, there's 2 major movies that are being shot
43:16 --> 43:19 here in Delaware. Yeah, in Delaware. Yeah, I did see that. Yep. And some
43:20 --> 43:24 of them have $3 million budgets, $5 million budgets. There's another 2
43:24 --> 43:27 that are getting ready to start shooting that are under $500.
43:27 --> 43:31 But there are there are
43:31 --> 43:35 stipulations to get like tax credits and the things that the film industry wants
43:36 --> 43:39 here. You have to hire local, you have to hire a certain amount of interns
43:39 --> 43:42 from the state, all of those things. So to answer the question,
43:45 --> 43:49 the young people have to see that there's something in it for
43:50 --> 43:54 them, you know. They have to see success,
43:54 --> 43:58 they have to see people who have done it, they have to see people
43:59 --> 44:03 who maybe have attained what they're looking to obtain.
44:04 --> 44:08 So, you know, what I would say to a young person is nothing
44:08 --> 44:12 is impossible. This is an exciting career
44:12 --> 44:16 to get into, you know, and you
44:16 --> 44:19 can use your passion and your interest as a starting
44:20 --> 44:22 point. You can love to be a rapper.
44:23 --> 44:27 And that doesn't mean that you're going to pursue being a
44:27 --> 44:30 rapper. You may end up doing something
44:31 --> 44:35 totally different, but it can be the entry point for
44:35 --> 44:38 you. Um, so, you know,
44:38 --> 44:41 what I, what I say to young people all the time is, you know,
44:45 --> 44:49 the modern music business This
44:49 --> 44:53 is why I tell the students of Delaware, the music business
44:53 --> 44:57 was invented by a guy from Dover, Delaware.
44:57 --> 45:01 I mean, if you need— if, if there's
45:01 --> 45:04 nothing that blows their
45:04 --> 45:07 mind more than, than saying that
45:08 --> 45:11 to them, I've seen it. I always say, you like Taylor Swift? You like Doja
45:11 --> 45:15 Cat? Uh, um, you know, um, Nicki Minaj.
45:15 --> 45:19 Who, who do you like? Oh yeah, they're all on this guy from Dover.
45:19 --> 45:23 His record label is still in existence 125 years later,
45:24 --> 45:27 right? Eldridge Reeves Johnson. We have a museum for
45:28 --> 45:32 him in Dover, Delaware, the Victrola Museum. This is the first time sound
45:32 --> 45:36 was captured and commercialized and turned into a music business,
45:36 --> 45:40 all created from a guy from Dover, Delaware. This isn't me making this
45:40 --> 45:44 up. You can go Google it. They teach it. I've never heard this before.
45:44 --> 45:47 Me neither. News to me. So, okay, so I'll give you
45:47 --> 45:51 the quick rundown. I'll try to do it in 3, 2 minutes. It's very
45:51 --> 45:53 hard because it's an expansive story.
45:55 --> 45:59 Emile Berliner helped Alexander
45:59 --> 46:03 Graham Bell invent the telephone, the horn that was the telephone.
46:03 --> 46:07 He had the patent for that. He basically walks
46:07 --> 46:10 away from Alexander Graham Bell because he made a new invention.
46:11 --> 46:15 Around 5 years after Thomas Edison made the phonograph,
46:15 --> 46:19 which was a cylindrical disc— think of it as a soup can— and
46:20 --> 46:24 it recorded on that tin. That was not— you could not reproduce
46:24 --> 46:28 that. So if you had a song on that, however it was recorded,
46:28 --> 46:31 you had to do it 5 times if you wanted 5 copies.
46:32 --> 46:36 So Emile Berliner realizes he can take the horn from
46:36 --> 46:39 the telephone and pipe sound into it onto
46:39 --> 46:43 a flat disc that rotates. And not only
46:43 --> 46:46 that, the sound can be played back through the same horn.
46:47 --> 46:51 He couldn't figure out what to do with it. Very crude invention.
46:52 --> 46:55 So he comes to Eldridge Reeves Johnson, who is
46:55 --> 46:59 from Dover, Delaware, was born in Wilmington, raised in Dover.
47:00 --> 47:04 And Eldridge Reeves Johnson figures
47:05 --> 47:08 out how to make the disc rotate at 78
47:08 --> 47:12 RPMs. This is where we get 78 and 33s
47:12 --> 47:16 from. Wow. Creates a governor's engine based on
47:16 --> 47:20 a steam engine, the way a steam engine rotates, with no electricity.
47:20 --> 47:23 Electricity hadn't even been invented yet. This is 1884.
47:24 --> 47:28 They form a company together called, um,
47:28 --> 47:32 uh, and call their invention the gramophone. Okay, that's someone—
47:32 --> 47:37 somebody gets a Grammy Award, they're getting— yeah, they're getting— oh
47:37 --> 47:40 yeah, yeah, this is the Dover dude's invention, Eldridge Johnson.
47:41 --> 47:45 Wow. So a legal battle ensues and they have to change
47:45 --> 47:49 the name from Gramophone to the Victor Talking Machine Company,
47:49 --> 47:53 the Victrola. And so Berliner goes
47:53 --> 47:57 back to Europe Uh,
47:57 --> 48:01 Alexander Graham Bell invents his invention
48:01 --> 48:05 called the graphophone. They get into a war,
48:05 --> 48:09 a patent war, from say 1885 to like 1901.
48:09 --> 48:12 They pool their patents together rather than going to court.
48:13 --> 48:16 Alexander Graham Bell creates Columbia Records,
48:16 --> 48:19 which is still in existence right now, right?
48:20 --> 48:23 So they have a monopoly on this business. From, say,
48:23 --> 48:28 1886, 1887 to 1912
48:28 --> 48:31 when the patents expired. And from there, the entire
48:32 --> 48:36 music industry is formed. But they invented flat discs,
48:36 --> 48:40 they made shellac, the concept of a master stamping
48:40 --> 48:44 masters— they, they invented this, uh, Eldridge Reeves
48:44 --> 48:48 Johnson and Emil Berliner. The first record label, Victor Records.
48:49 --> 48:52 They signed the first gospel group, the Fisk Jubilee
48:53 --> 48:56 Singers. They signed the first Black duo in history,
48:56 --> 49:01 Bert Williams and George Walker. They were the most highest-paid
49:01 --> 49:05 entertainers of the day, Black or white, in 1900.
49:06 --> 49:09 You know, they signed the first Argentinian
49:10 --> 49:13 woman to ever be heard in history. They signed the first—
49:14 --> 49:17 the father of blues, W.C. Handy. Recorded for the
49:17 --> 49:20 label. I mean, it just goes on and on until 1926.
49:21 --> 49:25 So not only is he selling records, he's selling
49:25 --> 49:29 these Victrola machines. His shop was in Camden.
49:29 --> 49:33 And if you think about industry
49:33 --> 49:37 being born in the early 1900s, you think
49:37 --> 49:41 of, uh, electricity, you think of the Model T, uh,
49:41 --> 49:45 Henry Ford, the assembly line. Eldridge Reeves Johnson
49:45 --> 49:49 is one of those types of manufacturers and
49:49 --> 49:53 industrial pioneers. His— he
49:53 --> 49:57 had an 8-block— 8 blocks in Camden, New Jersey,
49:57 --> 50:01 where they made these machines
50:02 --> 50:05 and recorded their artists. And at one
50:06 --> 50:09 point, he was the biggest exporter of wood in
50:10 --> 50:13 the entire world. Because that's how many machines they were making
50:14 --> 50:18 and selling. The biggest importer, excuse me. And this
50:18 --> 50:21 was a global operation. I'm sure you've heard of, um,
50:22 --> 50:25 JVC. JVC stands for
50:25 --> 50:29 Japan Victor Corporation, and they went on to invent
50:30 --> 50:34 the VHS, right? So all of
50:34 --> 50:37 this is from Dover a guy from Dover,
50:37 --> 50:41 Delaware, who, by the way, teachers said that he was too
50:41 --> 50:45 stupid to do anything. Literally.
50:45 --> 50:49 And one other thing, one of the most iconic
50:49 --> 50:53 logos in the world is the dog looking into the horn.
50:53 --> 50:57 Yes, Nipper. That's the first modern
50:58 --> 51:02 form of marketing. They also invented that and
51:02 --> 51:06 made that famous. As well. And so to
51:07 --> 51:08 bring it all back to students,
51:10 --> 51:13 we— at least I use that when I'm talking
51:14 --> 51:18 to young students to say, you want to be inspired by something? You're here from
51:18 --> 51:21 Delaware, and everybody always says, whatever came out of Delaware?
51:21 --> 51:24 Delaware is, you know— no, no, hold on, hold on.
51:24 --> 51:29 The man who invented the music that you still listen to Taylor
51:30 --> 51:34 Swift is on RCA. I forgot to say that in 1926,
51:34 --> 51:37 Radio Corporation of America bought Victor,
51:38 --> 51:41 and that's where if you look at records, you'll see RCA Victor.
51:42 --> 51:45 Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke,
51:45 --> 51:48 Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton,
51:49 --> 51:53 David Bowie. I mean, it just goes— it literally goes
51:53 --> 51:56 on. Frank Sinatra. I mean, thousands and
51:57 --> 52:00 thousands of artists recorded for this label.
52:00 --> 52:04 And up to today, RCA Records is
52:04 --> 52:08 the successor label to all of this. And that's Taylor Swift and,
52:09 --> 52:12 you know, all these other famous, famous artists.
52:12 --> 52:15 It's an amazing story right here. Wow. That is— look,
52:16 --> 52:19 you just, you just laid some knowledge on us, man. You did. Yeah, you just
52:20 --> 52:24 laid— hey, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm glad we got this podcast
52:24 --> 52:28 recorded. I'm glad it ain't live. Yeah. We can go back
52:28 --> 52:31 and study this. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, you know,
52:32 --> 52:35 I've got a nonprofit that I just got set up called Victor
52:35 --> 52:39 Society, and we're the official, um, fundraising partner for
52:39 --> 52:43 the museum down in Dover. And the whole purpose of the
52:44 --> 52:47 nonprofit is to start getting, uh,
52:48 --> 52:51 you know, we're, we're working in line, in lockstep
52:51 --> 52:54 with the state and the state's plans for the arts
52:55 --> 52:58 and these pathways through the arts. Because through this story,
52:58 --> 53:02 which most people in Delaware don't know— everybody knows the DuPont story,
53:02 --> 53:06 right? But where— what redeeming— with all due
53:06 --> 53:10 respect, what redeeming qualities are in the story of the DuPonts? You know,
53:10 --> 53:14 it's chemicals. It's things that have harmed communities. It's gunpowder.
53:14 --> 53:17 It's war. It's sales of weapons. You know,
53:17 --> 53:21 we're talking about art. And music and culture
53:22 --> 53:26 that for the first time in human history
53:27 --> 53:31 finally is coming into people's households. You have to understand, there was
53:31 --> 53:34 a point in time where you— if you wanted to hear music, somebody had to
53:34 --> 53:38 play it, or you had to go hear somebody play it. So this
53:38 --> 53:43 invention is the first time in the history of human existence
53:43 --> 53:47 that sound could be reproduced and commercialized and sold.
53:47 --> 53:51 It's fascinating. And so when the students see
53:52 --> 53:56 the invention up close, because we bring it to the schools,
53:56 --> 54:00 they're going to be at the, um, at the summit. They come to the summit
54:00 --> 54:03 every year. They bring their machines and they show you how you can wind it
54:04 --> 54:08 up and how loud they are and how the, you know, how it actually
54:08 --> 54:11 sounds and works. They're blown away. And it's the perfect
54:11 --> 54:14 way to get them interested. In science, technology, engineering,
54:14 --> 54:18 mathematics. Like, it's all wrapped up in this invention, not to
54:18 --> 54:22 mention business, finance, advertising, marketing. It's all there.
54:23 --> 54:26 It's all there. Wow. Okay. Yeah,
54:26 --> 54:29 well, you just— like I said, you just dropped some knowledge on us, man.
54:30 --> 54:33 So, um, and I really appreciate that. And of course I'm
54:33 --> 54:36 going to be doing some research. So, you know, listen, whenever y'all want to go
54:36 --> 54:39 down to the museum in Dover, just let me know. We'll go right in there.
54:39 --> 54:42 Okay, we'll definitely do that.
54:43 --> 54:45 Yeah, we'll come down there. Okay. All right,
54:46 --> 54:50 well, I'm gonna ask one more question. Yes, sir. And I
54:50 --> 54:54 gotta ask this question because, of course, you know, it's only natural.
54:54 --> 54:57 I mean, after— especially after you just covered everything you just covered.
55:00 --> 55:04 What does hip-hop mean to you? Oh, I mean,
55:04 --> 55:08 hip-hop I mean, it's, it's, it gave me my
55:08 --> 55:11 life, you know. It gave me my identity too,
55:11 --> 55:14 you know. Um, I'm biracial,
55:14 --> 55:18 Black and white, and a lot of times
55:18 --> 55:21 you hear about biracial people, whether they're Black and
55:22 --> 55:26 white or Black and Asian or Asian and whatever they are, they have these identity
55:26 --> 55:29 crises, right? Because you're never too— you're, you're not Black enough
55:29 --> 55:33 for this, you're not white enough for that, or about I never experienced
55:34 --> 55:37 any kind of identity problem because hip-hop has been
55:37 --> 55:41 my culture and my identity. You know what I mean? It's been
55:41 --> 55:45 my life since I was in 4th grade, since I was the age
55:46 --> 55:49 of my 8-year-old, you know, breakdancing,
55:49 --> 55:52 turntabling, you know, recording on
55:53 --> 55:56 machines, beatboxing, making my raps. Like,
55:56 --> 55:59 it's been a part of my life. Hip-hop is who I
56:00 --> 56:03 am, literally, literally, you know. And when
56:04 --> 56:07 you hear people say things like hip-hop saved my life, hip-hop— it's true. I mean,
56:08 --> 56:12 this has been my passion, and thankfully we
56:13 --> 56:16 were able to turn it into a business that had impact and
56:17 --> 56:21 that means something to people around the world, you know. So I
56:21 --> 56:24 mean, honestly, I can honestly say I don't know what the hell I'd be doing
56:25 --> 56:28 if I wasn't in hip-hop. I just I can't even
56:28 --> 56:32 imagine. I just don't know. Even when I was here working
56:32 --> 56:35 at the banks and all those things, I was still into like hip-hop,
56:35 --> 56:39 you know what I mean? I just can't imagine who I would
56:39 --> 56:42 be had I not, you know,
56:42 --> 56:46 been a part of hip-hop culture. It's just not even something I can
56:46 --> 56:50 even imagine. Just like you can't picture what infinity looks
56:51 --> 56:54 like, right? I can't picture what my life would be like without hip-hop.
56:55 --> 56:58 Wow. Okay, that's deep. That's, that's, that's a good answer. That's a
56:58 --> 57:00 good answer. Well,
57:01 --> 57:05 we want to definitely say it's been a
57:05 --> 57:08 pleasure having you come on and spending some time with us and
57:09 --> 57:11 dropping some knowledge on us like you did.
57:12 --> 57:15 And, uh, but I want you to take a moment
57:15 --> 57:19 right here before, uh, before we come to a close with this.
57:21 --> 57:24 And just kind of give everybody all the information
57:25 --> 57:28 as far as the summit is concerned. Um, you know, as far
57:28 --> 57:31 as, um, who to contact if they need to, or what's,
57:32 --> 57:35 you know, what your social media sites are in case people want to talk to
57:35 --> 57:39 you directly or Iz directly. So why don't you give that information?
57:40 --> 57:43 Yeah, no doubt. Listen, first of all, I want to say if you're still listening
57:43 --> 57:47 to me talk at this point, you know, thank you very much.
57:47 --> 57:50 And, you know, you definitely have to come to the summit now.
57:50 --> 57:53 There's no way. Yeah, definitely, right? Uh,
57:53 --> 57:57 so they hooked in now. They're hooked in. So if, uh, if you want to—
57:57 --> 58:01 we're asking everybody to register because we're approaching
58:01 --> 58:04 capacity very quick. You know, there's gonna be thousands of people there,
58:05 --> 58:08 uh, throughout the day. And you can register at allhiphop.com/summit.
58:11 --> 58:12 That's allhiphop.com/summit.
58:14 --> 58:18 Summit, S-U-M-M-I-T, or if that's too hard
58:19 --> 58:21 for you to remember, you can go to delart.org,
58:21 --> 58:25 D-E-L-A-R-T.org, and you can register
58:25 --> 58:28 there. You can walk up, but we're encouraging
58:28 --> 58:31 people to register because if you walk up and you don't get in,
58:31 --> 58:35 we don't want people to be, you know, upset because we're definitely going to
58:35 --> 58:39 have to close the doors at some point during the day. From 10
58:39 --> 58:43 AM to 5 PM at the Delaware Art Museum. Delaware Art Museum
58:43 --> 58:46 is the biggest art museum in Wilmington, Delaware, in the state,
58:46 --> 58:50 and it's a great, very large,
58:50 --> 58:54 expansive museum. I mean, it's just, it's just a great, great place
58:54 --> 58:57 to be. You can reach me personally
58:58 --> 59:00 on all of my handles are @GrouchyGreg,
59:00 --> 59:04 G-R-O-U-C-H-Y-G-R-E-G, and you
59:05 --> 59:07 can hit AllHipHop at allhiphop.com,
59:07 --> 59:10 A-L-L-H-I-P-H-O-P-C-O-M,
59:11 --> 59:12 and Iz is, brother Iz,
59:14 --> 59:18 Uh, at— on, on Instagram. Sure.
59:19 --> 59:22 All right. Okay, well, there you have it.
59:22 --> 59:26 Um, we want to definitely take the time and thank Dr.
59:26 --> 59:29 Grouchy Greg for coming on and hanging out with us,
59:29 --> 59:33 and we really truly appreciate it. And we were looking forward to this
59:33 --> 59:36 interview, so thank you for taking the time to hang out with us.
59:36 --> 59:39 And, um, everyone, definitely, you know where you need to
59:40 --> 59:43 be this weekend. You know, so definitely Saturday,
59:44 --> 59:47 get to that Hip Hop Summit and check it out. Okay.
59:47 --> 59:50 All right. Can I, can I say one last thing? Yeah, go ahead.
59:52 --> 59:55 Something that I did not get to mention. I just want to thank you,
59:55 --> 59:58 Leonard, for Delaware Black, you know, and,
59:58 --> 01:00:02 um, extending your platform to us. Oh yeah,
01:00:02 --> 01:00:04 definitely. Marketing, promote the summit, you know,
01:00:05 --> 01:00:08 and it was so amazing to have the 2
01:00:08 --> 01:00:12 young ladies that came in to interview us at the Delaware Art Museum.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:15 I saw that interview. That was, um, yeah, she did it. She did it
01:00:16 --> 01:00:20 excellent. So, so to— when you ask about, you know, what— how
01:00:20 --> 01:00:23 do you hook young people? How do you get young people? Those 2 young ladies
01:00:23 --> 01:00:27 are perfect examples because I have been going down there and talking to them
01:00:27 --> 01:00:31 for 2, 3 years now at their mass comm,
01:00:31 --> 01:00:35 you know, their mass comm majors at Delaware State University,
01:00:35 --> 01:00:39 and Here they are interviewing me in their first professional
01:00:39 --> 01:00:43 capacity. You know what I mean? Yeah. For my event.
01:00:43 --> 01:00:47 I mean, I was just like, wow, you know, this is the
01:00:47 --> 01:00:52 perfect example of the work that you do paying
01:00:52 --> 01:00:56 off and seeing it in the young people who are
01:00:56 --> 01:00:59 now in their profession working and pursuing their
01:00:59 --> 01:01:03 dreams. You know what I mean? So I just wanted to say that,
01:01:03 --> 01:01:06 man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Greg, you know, it's funny even just to piggyback
01:01:07 --> 01:01:10 off that. Um, and it's kind of like what we talked about before,
01:01:10 --> 01:01:14 like those, those 2 young ladies. So of
01:01:14 --> 01:01:17 course, you know, well, one is Portia's daughter Brooke and the other is Sanaya.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:21 And both of them are very hungry.
01:01:21 --> 01:01:25 They're energetic. They want to do stuff. And, you know, like, like me and
01:01:25 --> 01:01:28 Dave, we, we, we old now. So it's like, so, you know,
01:01:29 --> 01:01:31 because, you know, back in— and I'm sure, Greg, you're the same way. Back in
01:01:31 --> 01:01:35 the day, you wanted to be everywhere. Now I want to be in bed now
01:01:36 --> 01:01:39 at night. Yes, yes. You know, so like for me now, I, I don't
01:01:40 --> 01:01:43 want to be everywhere, but you know, it's refreshing, as you say,
01:01:43 --> 01:01:47 to see that there are these people. And I mean, for you it's probably full
01:01:47 --> 01:01:50 circle because you probably talked to them when they're at Delaware State.
01:01:51 --> 01:01:54 But you know, even for me, it's just refreshing to see that there's a,
01:01:54 --> 01:01:58 a new brand. And I mean, there are a lot of them out there,
01:01:58 --> 01:02:01 but just a new brand of young people who,
01:02:01 --> 01:02:04 who love media, you know, and they, they just
01:02:04 --> 01:02:08 want to hustle. Yeah, you know, and I mean, to be honest, they're, they're probably
01:02:09 --> 01:02:12 hustling now. Well, maybe not as much, but kind of like,
01:02:12 --> 01:02:15 you know, you and Chuck were hustling back in the day. Yeah, you know,
01:02:15 --> 01:02:18 so I believe it. I, I believe it. I see it. Yeah,
01:02:19 --> 01:02:22 yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, I mean, that's what social media
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 promotes, is getting out there and getting your hustle on. So,
01:02:26 --> 01:02:28 you know, Yeah, and for those that do get their hustle on,
01:02:30 --> 01:02:33 they, they make it, they make it to the mainstream.
01:02:33 --> 01:02:38 And I've seen so many artists that I've been watching over the, over the
01:02:38 --> 01:02:42 last 5 years, I would say especially, that have come
01:02:43 --> 01:02:47 to full, full circle. Now I'm being nominated for awards and,
01:02:47 --> 01:02:50 um, you know, I used to watch Teddy Swims
01:02:51 --> 01:02:55 a lot. Um, his videos where he'd be in the
01:02:55 --> 01:02:59 bar just cranking it out in a bar. Now he's nominated
01:02:59 --> 01:03:02 for Grammys and winning awards and everything, you know. And the guy
01:03:03 --> 01:03:05 got such a powerful, soulful voice, you know.
01:03:06 --> 01:03:10 Um, you know, um, you know, it just tells you
01:03:10 --> 01:03:13 that if you, if you hustle and you do what you— if you need what
01:03:13 --> 01:03:17 you need to do, that you can make it. And these young ladies,
01:03:17 --> 01:03:20 and, and I'm sure other ones out there, because I— it's
01:03:21 --> 01:03:24 so funny, so many of these kids are now choosing to do, you know,
01:03:24 --> 01:03:27 they want to do journalism, they want to do, they want to do, uh,
01:03:28 --> 01:03:32 they want to get into the producing and directing
01:03:33 --> 01:03:36 part of it. And so everybody's trying to get to
01:03:37 --> 01:03:40 the point where they know they can make it. So, um,
01:03:40 --> 01:03:44 and I'm praying that when Saturday
01:03:44 --> 01:03:48 comes around that you'll have a ton of young people
01:03:48 --> 01:03:52 there, you know, just because they want to be there, not because they're being dragged
01:03:52 --> 01:03:56 there. Right. Okay. All right, folks,
01:03:56 --> 01:03:59 there you have it. Um, so we have, uh,
01:04:00 --> 01:04:04 we've been blessed by the best, you know,
01:04:04 --> 01:04:08 as they say. Um, and, um, but we're gonna
01:04:08 --> 01:04:12 let, we're gonna let, uh, our guest go because we know he's on his
01:04:12 --> 01:04:15 way to another mission right now before 9 o'clock gets here. Yeah,
01:04:16 --> 01:04:19 eat and sleep. Yeah, there you go,
01:04:19 --> 01:04:23 there you go. But thank you again for coming and hanging out
01:04:23 --> 01:04:26 with us on News and Trends. Thank y'all, I appreciate it. All right, thank you.
01:04:26 --> 01:04:31 All right, have a great night. All right,
01:04:32 --> 01:04:35 all right, Lynn, let's see.
01:04:36 --> 01:04:39 So we got a couple things that we wanted to talk about before
01:04:40 --> 01:04:43 we close out the show. So, um,
01:04:44 --> 01:04:47 let's see. I came across
01:04:48 --> 01:04:51 this story. Excuse me. I came across the story.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:57 Did you see this, by the way? Uh, no. So,
01:04:57 --> 01:05:00 okay. Yeah, well, you didn't know. I, I saw the headline
01:05:00 --> 01:05:04 for it and I, I just knew it was gonna
01:05:04 --> 01:05:07 be something crazy. I, I hadn't read it yet. Okay. All right.
01:05:08 --> 01:05:12 Well, so I heard about it and
01:05:12 --> 01:05:16 I started laughing, but I hadn't seen it yet. And then I went and looked
01:05:16 --> 01:05:19 for it. And so this is the story, folks.
01:05:19 --> 01:05:22 Trump shares fake Denzel
01:05:23 --> 01:05:26 Washington endorsement. And it
01:05:27 --> 01:05:30 had already been debunked by fact-checkers,
01:05:30 --> 01:05:34 by the fact-checkers already. But This guy is
01:05:34 --> 01:05:37 getting real desperate these days. He really is.
01:05:38 --> 01:05:41 So, and then if you've seen the picture, there's a picture
01:05:42 --> 01:05:45 of Denzel and, you know,
01:05:45 --> 01:05:49 he's kind of giving a testament in
01:05:49 --> 01:05:53 reference to Trump and
01:05:53 --> 01:05:57 saying, you know, you know, kind of make it seem like these
01:05:57 --> 01:06:00 two are buddies and they in it together with all of this stuff.
01:06:01 --> 01:06:04 It's very interesting how, you know,
01:06:06 --> 01:06:09 social media— Trump, the way that Trump uses social media. But I'm
01:06:09 --> 01:06:12 going to— here's the story. Here's the story. It said,
01:06:13 --> 01:06:17 at this point, who's surprised? Donald Trump shared
01:06:18 --> 01:06:21 an endorsement Sunday evening that had already been proven false.
01:06:23 --> 01:06:26 In a Truth Social post, Trump posted a
01:06:26 --> 01:06:31 screenshot from an X account called Red Eagle Updates
01:06:32 --> 01:06:35 that quoted Denzel Washington saying he had never,
01:06:35 --> 01:06:38 ever met anyone braver,
01:06:39 --> 01:06:43 smarter, who cares more about America than
01:06:43 --> 01:06:48 Donald Trump. The quote also called Trump
01:06:49 --> 01:06:51 a great friend and even a better president.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:56 I couldn't get— you can't even get
01:06:56 --> 01:07:00 through that. I know, I know. That's so funny. The problem,
01:07:01 --> 01:07:04 it says Snopes, the, you know,
01:07:04 --> 01:07:07 infamous website that always, you know,
01:07:08 --> 01:07:11 fact-checks everything, had debunked it 2
01:07:11 --> 01:07:15 days earlier. So when he posted it, it had already been debunked.
01:07:16 --> 01:07:20 On October 10th, the fact-checking site reported
01:07:20 --> 01:07:24 finding no credible sources showing Washington ever praised Donald
01:07:24 --> 01:07:28 Trump with those words or any other words. The same
01:07:29 --> 01:07:32 fabricated quote has also been falsely attributed
01:07:32 --> 01:07:36 to actors Matthew McConaughey and
01:07:36 --> 01:07:39 the Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger,
01:07:40 --> 01:07:43 though no evidence shows either man ever made
01:07:43 --> 01:07:45 such comments about Donald Trump.
01:07:46 --> 01:07:49 A long pattern of false claims This is not
01:07:50 --> 01:07:54 the first time Washington has been placed at the center of
01:07:54 --> 01:07:57 invented political statements. In 2016,
01:07:58 --> 01:08:02 reports claimed he backed Trump in the most
01:08:02 --> 01:08:05 epic way. His publicist,
01:08:05 --> 01:08:09 Alan Nirav, told BBC News the
01:08:10 --> 01:08:13 story was 100% complete fabrication.
01:08:14 --> 01:08:17 In 2018, Fact checkers debunked the claim
01:08:17 --> 01:08:21 that Washington called Obama the criminal-in-chief.
01:08:23 --> 01:08:27 Federal Elections Commission records show Washington donated to
01:08:27 --> 01:08:30 Democratic candidates, including, uh,
01:08:30 --> 01:08:35 $28 to Barack's 2008
01:08:35 --> 01:08:39 campaign and $27 to Hillary's.
01:08:42 --> 01:08:45 Hillary's 2016 campaign.
01:08:47 --> 01:08:51 He, they said the same quote Trump
01:08:52 --> 01:08:56 shared has also been falsely attributed to the
01:08:56 --> 01:08:59 other 2 before-mentioned persons as well.
01:09:00 --> 01:09:04 It says not, not an isolated incident.
01:09:04 --> 01:09:08 Trump's account shared the debunked post moments after reposting
01:09:08 --> 01:09:12 conservative commentator Nick Slaughter, who wrote
01:09:13 --> 01:09:16 that Trump just danced off the stage in Tennessee after
01:09:17 --> 01:09:20 another 2-hour speech. In August of 2024,
01:09:20 --> 01:09:24 Trump shared a false claim that JPMorgan Chase CEO
01:09:25 --> 01:09:29 Jamie Dimon had endorsed
01:09:29 --> 01:09:32 him. The bank denied it. Around the same time,
01:09:32 --> 01:09:36 the account posted AI-generated images suggesting that Taylor
01:09:36 --> 01:09:40 Swift supporters backed him. Taylor Swift's supporters backed him.
01:09:41 --> 01:09:44 Swift then endorsed Kamala Harris that September.
01:09:45 --> 01:09:48 I remember that. Yeah, that was—
01:09:48 --> 01:09:53 yeah. So Trump is out here trying to do
01:09:53 --> 01:09:56 everything that he can to try to make sure
01:09:56 --> 01:10:29 that All
01:10:29 --> 01:10:32 right, looks like we may have lost Dave. I'm not sure what happened,
01:10:32 --> 01:10:36 but, you know, I mean, I, I think it's just ironic
01:10:36 --> 01:10:40 that anything Trump does, I feel like he
01:10:40 --> 01:10:43 plays to the uninformed,
01:10:43 --> 01:10:47 unknowing, you know. Um, I was watching something
01:10:48 --> 01:10:52 today how they had— I guess they have introduced
01:10:52 --> 01:10:56 a new White House press secretary. And for the press secretary,
01:10:56 --> 01:11:01 I thought it was, uh, unique because— in
01:11:01 --> 01:11:04 fact, David, are you back with us, sir? Yeah, I don't know what just happened.
01:11:04 --> 01:11:07 That's weird. But anyway, go ahead. What were you saying? Yep, so I, I was
01:11:08 --> 01:11:09 just saying, so I don't know if you saw it today, but I was just
01:11:10 --> 01:11:14 kind of recapping how, um, I feel like Trump plays to the uneducated,
01:11:14 --> 01:11:19 the unknowing, the, um, you know, the unaware.
01:11:19 --> 01:11:22 But I was saying, I don't know if you saw it today, just kind of
01:11:22 --> 01:11:26 piggybacking on this story Did you see that they have a new press secretary,
01:11:26 --> 01:11:30 a White House press secretary? Um, because before it was the,
01:11:31 --> 01:11:33 um, the blonde-haired girl Carolyn Loveett,
01:11:34 --> 01:11:37 right? So they haven't— I didn't know they had a new one. I didn't know
01:11:37 --> 01:11:41 that. Yep. So I believe today was her first day. So she is also
01:11:41 --> 01:11:44 a blonde-haired girl. So in my mind I'm thinking, okay, Trump has a type,
01:11:46 --> 01:11:50 you know. But, um, so she was
01:11:50 --> 01:11:54 speaking, and the internet has clowned her,
01:11:55 --> 01:11:59 basically definitely saying she didn't write the speech and
01:11:59 --> 01:12:03 she was kind of slow and not confident in reading everything
01:12:03 --> 01:12:07 she was reading and pronouncing. But I thought it was
01:12:09 --> 01:12:12 par for the course because there were a couple things
01:12:12 --> 01:12:16 that she said that were the type of things
01:12:16 --> 01:12:18 that Trump says. You know, like,
01:12:19 --> 01:12:23 um, you know, he just had a, a massive
01:12:23 --> 01:12:26 sellout arena because, you know, Trump loves to use adjectives. So,
01:12:26 --> 01:12:30 yeah, yeah, everything's big, everything's big, the biggest,
01:12:30 --> 01:12:34 the best ever, you know. So, um, there were a lot of those,
01:12:34 --> 01:12:38 uh, I guess adjectives and superlatives in, in her speech,
01:12:38 --> 01:12:40 which just kind of made me, you know, just,
01:12:41 --> 01:12:44 just chuckle to myself. But if you get a chance, take a look at that
01:12:44 --> 01:12:47 as well. I would definitely, I would definitely do that. Oh, you know what?
01:12:48 --> 01:12:51 That must be the person that's— I didn't know who they were spoofing,
01:12:51 --> 01:12:55 but Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Oh, did they?
01:12:55 --> 01:12:58 Yeah, they— I'm sure that's the same person you're talking about because
01:12:59 --> 01:13:02 it was a blonde-haired woman. Yeah, because, you know, I don't know if you ever—
01:13:02 --> 01:13:06 if you catch them from time to time, but in their opening monologue,
01:13:06 --> 01:13:10 they're always doing something political and it's always something around Donald Trump,
01:13:10 --> 01:13:13 always. Always, uh, room. But, um, you know,
01:13:13 --> 01:13:17 it just says a lot about— I mean, I just think that
01:13:17 --> 01:13:20 he is really in a situation where he finds that,
01:13:21 --> 01:13:25 you know, the, the Republican
01:13:25 --> 01:13:29 Party could be in a lot of trouble because of, you know,
01:13:29 --> 01:13:32 both House— the House and the Senate could be taken over with this election.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:37 Yeah. And, and I just have a feeling there's going to be a
01:13:37 --> 01:13:41 lot going on with the votes. You know,
01:13:41 --> 01:13:43 I just feel that they're going to mess with these votes somehow.
01:13:44 --> 01:13:47 Well, you know, if there's any way they can, I know
01:13:48 --> 01:13:52 that they're gonna try. They're gonna try. They're definitely gonna try. Yeah, because they,
01:13:52 --> 01:13:55 they already know what looks like
01:13:56 --> 01:13:59 it's going to be the actuality is not going to be what
01:13:59 --> 01:14:02 they want, right? Definitely, definitely. And,
01:14:03 --> 01:14:06 and then when you think about it, you know, with his, his popularity
01:14:06 --> 01:14:09 going down I mean, you know, and it's at an
01:14:09 --> 01:14:14 all-time low. I mean, how could you have a president of the United States
01:14:14 --> 01:14:19 with a, uh, with the low—
01:14:19 --> 01:14:22 with the, the low popularity that this guy has
01:14:23 --> 01:14:26 that's right now in the 30s, right?
01:14:26 --> 01:14:29 You know, I mean, you know, did you think they
01:14:30 --> 01:14:33 would ever have let President Obama have a,
01:14:34 --> 01:14:37 a 30 approval rating? And, and still be president?
01:14:38 --> 01:14:42 Yeah, I mean, they, they would have let them, but they, they just— they,
01:14:42 --> 01:14:45 they would have used that continually. They would have made— no,
01:14:45 --> 01:14:49 they would have got him out of office later. Come on now, that ain't going—
01:14:49 --> 01:14:52 you already know that. Well, but no, but you know, the only way they can
01:14:52 --> 01:14:55 get them out of office is to impeach them, and they can only— and that's
01:14:55 --> 01:14:58 what they would have done. But I mean, they still would have had to find
01:14:59 --> 01:15:03 a reason. But I mean, but hasn't our president
01:15:03 --> 01:15:06 been impeached already? Yeah, but you know, he, uh,
01:15:06 --> 01:15:11 he's, uh, working with evil magic. He thinks,
01:15:11 --> 01:15:15 he thinks he, he thinks he's, uh, the Teflon
01:15:15 --> 01:15:18 Don, man. That's what he thinks he is, you know. So, you know,
01:15:19 --> 01:15:22 what can you say? It's crazy. I mean, um,
01:15:23 --> 01:15:26 this is— well, you know, we got the, we got the,
01:15:26 --> 01:15:29 um, general election coming up in what, a couple weeks?
01:15:30 --> 01:15:34 Let's It's gonna be interesting. It really is. I think
01:15:34 --> 01:15:38 there's going to be some big turnover. I really do. I'm sure.
01:15:39 --> 01:15:42 Yeah, yeah, I really do. So, all right,
01:15:43 --> 01:15:46 we're gonna move on from, uh, Donald Trump
01:15:47 --> 01:15:50 trying to use our man Denzel. You know, not Denzel. You can't use Denzel.
01:15:51 --> 01:15:54 You, you know, you don't even try that.
01:15:55 --> 01:16:01 You could use Snoop probably, but anyway, um, so Um,
01:16:01 --> 01:16:05 let's see. Uh, this other story was a sad story.
01:16:05 --> 01:16:10 It's been a lot said about it, but I
01:16:10 --> 01:16:13 brought this story up because I remember when I saw this— when I
01:16:14 --> 01:16:16 saw this thing for the first time,
01:16:19 --> 01:16:21 and I was a roller coaster rider.
01:16:22 --> 01:16:26 Were you? No, that doesn't surprise
01:16:27 --> 01:16:31 me for some reason. No, you know, roller coasters have just never been my thing.
01:16:32 --> 01:16:36 Why? So, you know, I think it's one
01:16:36 --> 01:16:39 of the things where it's like, you know, some people love that,
01:16:40 --> 01:16:43 the thrill of the, the moment,
01:16:44 --> 01:16:47 like roller coasters, bungee jumping, motorcycles,
01:16:48 --> 01:16:51 you know, that, that has just never been my thing.
01:16:52 --> 01:16:56 Um, I, I can say honestly, I've never been a roller coaster
01:16:56 --> 01:17:00 person. And now at, at this big age
01:17:00 --> 01:17:04 I am now, to be honest, you know, roller coaster is not even
01:17:04 --> 01:17:07 on my— you know, if I go to amusement park and the kids want
01:17:08 --> 01:17:12 to ride a roller coaster, I'll wait. Yeah, they— I'll, I'll be
01:17:12 --> 01:17:15 that person holding the, um, the purses and the bags
01:17:15 --> 01:17:18 and the, and, you know, the, the drinks. But yeah, no, I, I didn't— never
01:17:19 --> 01:17:23 been a roller coaster person. Wow. And you know what? I love the roller
01:17:23 --> 01:17:26 coasters. I rode them all the time. I rode them until I couldn't ride them
01:17:27 --> 01:17:30 anymore because, you know, uh, I had outgrown them. You know,
01:17:30 --> 01:17:33 I couldn't get— I couldn't get on one. And I wasn't that— I remember the
01:17:34 --> 01:17:37 last one I got on, I felt so unsafe
01:17:38 --> 01:17:42 because, uh, you know, I basically
01:17:42 --> 01:17:45 was— it kind of squeezed myself into this thing.
01:17:45 --> 01:17:49 Right. And I just said, nah, I don't like this feeling, you know,
01:17:49 --> 01:17:53 because I— you didn't know what could have happened, you know. And so
01:17:53 --> 01:17:56 I just said, oh, I'm done with roller coasters. But I always liked them.
01:17:56 --> 01:17:59 So, but I remember when I saw this particular roller
01:18:00 --> 01:18:03 coaster, I said to myself,
01:18:05 --> 01:18:06 nah, that doesn't look safe to me.
01:18:08 --> 01:18:11 So the reason I brought that up is Uh,
01:18:12 --> 01:18:15 this next story: Hassan Jihad
01:18:16 --> 01:18:20 Ibn Kareem dies after
01:18:20 --> 01:18:23 fatal fall from Six Flags roller coaster.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:28 A 42-year-old Atlanta man died after being ejected from
01:18:28 --> 01:18:31 the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia,
01:18:33 --> 01:18:37 with police reporting that he struck other park visitors before
01:18:37 --> 01:18:39 falling beneath the ride.
01:18:41 --> 01:18:45 Several other people were injured, and investigators
01:18:45 --> 01:18:49 are working to establish what happened. A 42-year-old
01:18:49 --> 01:18:53 Atlanta man died. Oh, kind of repeated itself,
01:18:53 --> 01:18:54 I'm sorry. Uh,
01:18:54 --> 01:18:57 let's see.
01:18:58 --> 01:19:03 Um, they said the Cobb, um, County Police Department
01:19:03 --> 01:19:07 identified the victim, and they said
01:19:07 --> 01:19:11 the officers responded to the incident approximately at 3:58
01:19:12 --> 01:19:15 PM on Monday, October 12th, and found
01:19:16 --> 01:19:18 him unresponsive beneath the attraction.
01:19:20 --> 01:19:24 He was later pronounced dead, as reported by CNN.
01:19:25 --> 01:19:28 According to preliminary information gathered through interviews with witnesses
01:19:28 --> 01:19:33 and park employees, assigned to hide was
01:19:33 --> 01:19:37 ejected from the coaster and struck by— struck other patients—
01:19:37 --> 01:19:41 patrons before falling beneath
01:19:42 --> 01:19:46 the ride. Authorities have not yet explained what caused
01:19:46 --> 01:19:47 him to be thrown from the train.
01:19:49 --> 01:19:53 Um, they said,
01:19:53 --> 01:19:53 uh,
01:19:57 --> 01:20:00 Sorry, they said that he,
01:20:06 --> 01:20:09 um, they— well, they said the witnesses, um, described seeing
01:20:09 --> 01:20:12 the man fall from the coaster. Um,
01:20:13 --> 01:20:17 they said that he was riding with his son while his wife and
01:20:18 --> 01:20:22 daughter watched from the ground. These details have been attributed
01:20:22 --> 01:20:25 to eyewitness accounts and have not been presented as
01:20:26 --> 01:20:30 official findings about the cause of the incident. 4 other people reportedly
01:20:30 --> 01:20:33 were injured. Officials had not,
01:20:33 --> 01:20:37 um, not publicly detailed
01:20:37 --> 01:20:40 the nature of the severity of the injuries. They said
01:20:41 --> 01:20:44 Six Flags said it would— it was cooperating with the authorities and
01:20:44 --> 01:20:47 offering support to people affected by the incident.
01:20:48 --> 01:20:51 The company temporarily closed
01:20:51 --> 01:20:55 9 similar roller coasters across its parks,
01:20:56 --> 01:21:00 which is 6 parks in the United States and Canada, as precaution.
01:21:02 --> 01:21:05 And there's been a couple other, um,
01:21:05 --> 01:21:09 non-related, um, amusement parks that have also closed down
01:21:09 --> 01:21:12 their roller coasters, you know, and doing,
01:21:12 --> 01:21:16 you know, security checks on them to make sure that they're all right.
01:21:16 --> 01:21:20 I don't know if you saw this thing. This thing is
01:21:20 --> 01:21:23 pretty unique if you get a chance to see it. And it
01:21:24 --> 01:21:28 kind of turns the people— it extends
01:21:28 --> 01:21:32 the people away from the seats that you normally
01:21:32 --> 01:21:36 would see on a roller coaster. And they kind of spin around in
01:21:36 --> 01:21:39 the air. Gotcha. And that's, you know,
01:21:39 --> 01:21:43 and I just said to myself, yeah, I don't know.
01:21:43 --> 01:21:46 That's not one that looks like it's going to stay to me, you know.
01:21:46 --> 01:21:49 So But it's really a shame. Um, you know,
01:21:49 --> 01:21:53 this guy, you know, you get on a roller coaster and,
01:21:53 --> 01:21:57 and then they— the, the ride stopped and they had to
01:21:57 --> 01:21:59 walk down the tracks. That's crazy.
01:22:01 --> 01:22:04 Like, you know, like at the top
01:22:05 --> 01:22:08 of the hills and walking down the tracks, coming down to get
01:22:08 --> 01:22:12 to safety because, um, they stopped everything
01:22:12 --> 01:22:16 and they had to walk their way down. I was like, man, I can
01:22:16 --> 01:22:20 only imagine how those— how everybody must have felt about
01:22:20 --> 01:22:24 that, right? But Six Flags, you already
01:22:25 --> 01:22:28 know they're about to lose some money.
01:22:29 --> 01:22:32 And, um, because that's definitely gonna be a
01:22:33 --> 01:22:36 big lawsuit. Yeah, definitely. And then we got people that got hurt.
01:22:37 --> 01:22:40 Um, there was one young lady that was talking on the news. I was watching
01:22:40 --> 01:22:44 it this morning. She couldn't even get her words out, she was so hysterical about
01:22:44 --> 01:22:47 I'm watching this person fall and there
01:22:48 --> 01:22:51 was nothing that anybody can do about it, you know. So,
01:22:52 --> 01:22:56 you know, that's a sad case. It is a sad case. I mean,
01:22:56 --> 01:23:00 and I was always amusement park guy, you know, and I would take,
01:23:00 --> 01:23:03 you know, I used to take my kids to the amusement park. We would go—
01:23:04 --> 01:23:07 our favorite place to go was Kings Dominion down in Virginia,
01:23:08 --> 01:23:12 and we used to go down there all the time. And I'll
01:23:13 --> 01:23:17 never forget, um, they had the stand-up roller coaster. I'll never forget when they got
01:23:17 --> 01:23:20 it, and my kids thought I was crazy for getting on it,
01:23:21 --> 01:23:25 man, you know. And that's another thing with them roller coasters, the G-forces
01:23:25 --> 01:23:28 that they take you around, those turns and up and down. I was like,
01:23:29 --> 01:23:33 I could see something like that happening with— and that was a pretty new ride.
01:23:33 --> 01:23:36 That was like, I think this is the first year they had that ride.
01:23:37 --> 01:23:40 You know, so, so, but what's your— well, we know you
01:23:41 --> 01:23:43 don't like roller coasters. You made that clear. Yeah, I mean, I, you know,
01:23:43 --> 01:23:46 I, I think it's hard to say. Like, you know, roller coasters,
01:23:46 --> 01:23:50 that's, you know, part of America's pastime. And, you know, all around
01:23:51 --> 01:23:54 the world, you know, there's those theme parks that have them,
01:23:54 --> 01:23:58 you know. And I, I think it makes it difficult because,
01:23:59 --> 01:24:03 you know, every new ride that comes out or every new theme park
01:24:04 --> 01:24:07 they always want to make it more daring, scarier,
01:24:07 --> 01:24:11 higher, faster, you know, more exhilarating.
01:24:11 --> 01:24:15 Which, I mean, you know, um, we already know there's
01:24:15 --> 01:24:18 a market for it, so it's not, you know, it is what it is.
01:24:18 --> 01:24:21 But, um, I mean,
01:24:22 --> 01:24:26 you know, it's just sad, you know. Um, I, I, and I potentially
01:24:26 --> 01:24:29 traumatizing for anyone who's there to witness it. Um,
01:24:29 --> 01:24:33 you know, of course, for any families involved. But, you know,
01:24:33 --> 01:24:36 Dave, theme parks are something that has always
01:24:36 --> 01:24:38 been, and there's always been a little bit of risk.
01:24:39 --> 01:24:43 And, uh, to be honest, I mean, hopefully they can improve some of the safety,
01:24:43 --> 01:24:46 but, you know, as we know, nothing's guaranteed
01:24:47 --> 01:24:50 100%. Yeah, I think what's happened is,
01:24:50 --> 01:24:54 because, you know, when you go back 20, 30 years, you know, the engineering
01:24:54 --> 01:24:57 of those thrill rides, the really big ones,
01:25:00 --> 01:25:04 they seem to be more interested
01:25:04 --> 01:25:07 in the construction of the, the ride and
01:25:08 --> 01:25:11 making sure of the safety features. Now I think it's
01:25:12 --> 01:25:14 more about the thrill. Yeah. Than anything.
01:25:15 --> 01:25:19 And I think they, you know, even the, you know, they're more worried about
01:25:20 --> 01:25:24 the moving parts of the ride as opposed to the safety of
01:25:24 --> 01:25:28 the ride, you know. Like, this thing, this thing,
01:25:28 --> 01:25:31 the way this thing moved around and had people flipping,
01:25:31 --> 01:25:35 I was, you know, plus you're going up and down hills at the same time.
01:25:35 --> 01:25:39 That was crazy. And like I said, you know, as I'm— I don't
01:25:39 --> 01:25:42 know, and even as a roller coaster rider, I don't
01:25:42 --> 01:25:46 think that would have been one I got on, be honest with
01:25:46 --> 01:25:50 you. So, but our prayers go out to the
01:25:51 --> 01:25:53 family, uh, you know, of the,
01:25:54 --> 01:25:58 um, young man that, that passed away. You know, uh,
01:25:58 --> 01:26:01 it's really a sad thing.
01:26:02 --> 01:26:06 It's really a shame that that happened. So hopefully that the—
01:26:06 --> 01:26:10 they're able to figure out what happened. And then, uh,
01:26:11 --> 01:26:14 you know, I don't know what's going to happen with the roller coaster
01:26:15 --> 01:26:18 itself. Whether they're gonna, you know,
01:26:18 --> 01:26:22 take it down or whatever, or make the improvements that they
01:26:22 --> 01:26:25 need to make as far as the safety is concerned. So, right,
01:26:27 --> 01:26:29 yeah. So, all right, well,
01:26:30 --> 01:26:33 that brings us to Leonard's favorite part of the show,
01:26:34 --> 01:26:37 uh, which is Dave's time to go. Okay, all right, well, we'll,
01:26:37 --> 01:26:41 we'll see y'all next week. No, that rhymes with what
01:26:41 --> 01:26:44 I said, but that's not what I said. So, um, so I
01:26:45 --> 01:26:48 got a, I got a question for you. This is usually where we ask
01:26:49 --> 01:26:52 philosophical questions. I mean, the last couple of weeks we've been doing
01:26:53 --> 01:26:56 questions, you know, culture check and all that kind of stuff. Um, I'm sure he's
01:26:57 --> 01:26:59 gonna try to get me with one of these before we leave. But anyway,
01:26:59 --> 01:27:03 uh, I got a philosophical question for you
01:27:03 --> 01:27:06 since we just celebrated your birthday over the weekend.
01:27:06 --> 01:27:10 Uh, well, yesterday, you know, it keeps— but celebrating the actual
01:27:10 --> 01:27:14 birthday over the weekend. Um, I gotta— I
01:27:14 --> 01:27:16 got a question for the birthday boy, so here we go.
01:27:19 --> 01:27:24 You are blowing out your birthday candles on
01:27:24 --> 01:27:27 your birthday cake. Kind of mentioned that earlier.
01:27:28 --> 01:27:31 You are asked to make 3 different wishes for
01:27:31 --> 01:27:35 your birthday that you are told are
01:27:35 --> 01:27:36 guaranteed to come true.
01:27:39 --> 01:27:41 What are you wishing for?
01:27:44 --> 01:27:47 So I'm gonna wish for endless money, so money,
01:27:48 --> 01:27:52 money's never an issue. Like, like an endless app,
01:27:52 --> 01:27:56 huh? Like an endless appetizer buffet.
01:27:56 --> 01:27:58 Yeah, there you go. Um,
01:28:04 --> 01:28:10 I'm going to wish— I
01:28:10 --> 01:28:15 don't know, it's almost a combination of— I
01:28:15 --> 01:28:18 would definitely like to go back in time and maybe
01:28:19 --> 01:28:22 there's probably about 10 to 12 people I wish to have like 1 hour
01:28:23 --> 01:28:26 with, you know, 1 additional hour with, you know, people who have
01:28:26 --> 01:28:29 passed away. And then,
01:28:30 --> 01:28:31 um,
01:28:35 --> 01:28:38 what's the last thing? I see you
01:28:38 --> 01:28:41 over there laughing. You, you probably got all type of jokes, don't you?
01:28:42 --> 01:28:45 Yeah. Um, and then the last thing would probably be,
01:28:48 --> 01:28:52 you know, there'd be certain things with my children
01:28:52 --> 01:28:56 that I would want to see. So like, I, I would love to see them
01:28:56 --> 01:29:00 get married, them have kids, you know, I,
01:29:00 --> 01:29:03 you know, I, I, I, I, I, and, and at least play some type of
01:29:04 --> 01:29:07 role in, I guess, those grandkids' lives that,
01:29:08 --> 01:29:11 you know, kind of is memorable to them as well as, I guess,
01:29:11 --> 01:29:15 to me. Those would be the 3 things I'd wish for.
01:29:16 --> 01:29:20 Speaking of grandkids, do you have an age in mind that you think
01:29:21 --> 01:29:24 you would like to be No, it's kind of hard because, you know,
01:29:24 --> 01:29:27 they— you know, these kids, some of them, we have them early, some of them
01:29:28 --> 01:29:31 late. You know, Dave, they, they, they mess around, make me have to be 120
01:29:31 --> 01:29:35 years old to see some grandkids or something. Yeah, I know.
01:29:35 --> 01:29:38 Yeah, but yeah, I get it. All right,
01:29:39 --> 01:29:42 how about me? Um, let's see. Um,
01:29:43 --> 01:29:47 I don't have to have the endless amount of money, but I would like
01:29:47 --> 01:29:50 to have enough money that I I would love to be able to retire and
01:29:50 --> 01:29:53 not have to worry about money again, you know,
01:29:53 --> 01:29:57 and everything gets paid and,
01:29:58 --> 01:30:01 you know, just be comfortable no matter how
01:30:01 --> 01:30:05 crazy the living expenses and life gets.
01:30:05 --> 01:30:08 You know, I'll still be able to be a part of it, you know,
01:30:08 --> 01:30:09 financially.
01:30:16 --> 01:30:20 To get this government back
01:30:20 --> 01:30:23 on track to make
01:30:24 --> 01:30:26 America truly a great place to live again.
01:30:27 --> 01:30:30 Yeah, yeah. You know,
01:30:31 --> 01:30:34 everything's manageable prices-wise, you know.
01:30:35 --> 01:30:37 Uh, we have a real president,
01:30:37 --> 01:30:41 regardless of who that might be, a real president that looks out for the
01:30:42 --> 01:30:46 Americans and making sure that we're able to help
01:30:47 --> 01:30:49 to find world peace.
01:30:51 --> 01:30:59 And the last thing would be— the last
01:30:59 --> 01:31:04 thing would probably be to
01:31:04 --> 01:31:08 see I just want
01:31:08 --> 01:31:15 to see my kids, um, become like
01:31:15 --> 01:31:19 really happy and successful in
01:31:19 --> 01:31:22 each one of their lives, um, even though,
01:31:23 --> 01:31:26 you know, they're doing that right now. But I'm just saying, you know, I just
01:31:26 --> 01:31:29 want them to be happy and, and to live long lives and,
01:31:31 --> 01:31:34 and be able to prosper. Be, you know, prosperous,
01:31:35 --> 01:31:39 you know, because if I, you know, that would
01:31:40 --> 01:31:43 make me happiest to see that, you know. Yeah, so that would
01:31:43 --> 01:31:47 probably be my 3 wishes right there. So, all right, it sounds
01:31:47 --> 01:31:51 good. Yeah, so you guys out there, peace, I get it.
01:31:51 --> 01:31:54 Yeah, yeah, well, definitely we need that right now.
01:31:54 --> 01:31:58 Um, you guys out there that are listening, you know,
01:31:58 --> 01:32:01 give us your your 3 wishes and what you would,
01:32:01 --> 01:32:05 what you would do if you had the chance to be able to
01:32:05 --> 01:32:09 definitely have wishes that are definitely coming true. So give
01:32:10 --> 01:32:12 us your thoughts on that. All right,
01:32:13 --> 01:32:16 well, I guess that's— all right, so now it's time for Dave's favorite part of
01:32:16 --> 01:32:21 the show, the culture check question of the day. And Dave,
01:32:21 --> 01:32:24 I thought I was gonna get that past you. I know. So Dave, this right
01:32:25 --> 01:32:28 here is an easy one. So I mean, you shouldn't even need any choices.
01:32:29 --> 01:32:32 Okay. So this one comes from the category of, um,
01:32:32 --> 01:32:37 civil rights movement. Okay. Who was the primary
01:32:37 --> 01:32:41 organizer of the 1963
01:32:42 --> 01:32:43 March on Washington?
01:32:46 --> 01:32:47 Do you need choices?
01:32:50 --> 01:32:52 Yeah, give me choices. John Lewis,
01:32:54 --> 01:32:55 Ralph Abernathy,
01:32:57 --> 01:33:01 Bayard Rustin, or James Farmer?
01:33:02 --> 01:33:06 You know what's so interesting about this question? What, you,
01:33:06 --> 01:33:09 you just saw the documentary? Yeah, because it's,
01:33:09 --> 01:33:13 it's, it's because technically they
01:33:13 --> 01:33:15 all had a hand in it. You know that, right?
01:33:16 --> 01:33:19 Primary. I know, but I know,
01:33:19 --> 01:33:23 I get it, I get it. You, you trying to switch around the question
01:33:23 --> 01:33:27 to justify— I just don't think it sounds like you're trying to justify
01:33:27 --> 01:33:30 a wrong answer here. No, I'm not trying
01:33:30 --> 01:33:34 to justify a wrong answer. I'm just saying, if you
01:33:34 --> 01:33:39 know the history of all of this, they all kind of instigated
01:33:39 --> 01:33:42 trying to get that done. So they— this is not Who Wants
01:33:43 --> 01:33:47 to Be a Millionaire where you speak out Well, you know, it was,
01:33:47 --> 01:33:51 it was, it was, um, John Lewis.
01:33:52 --> 01:33:56 That is incorrect. Okay, so you're gonna say Barnard,
01:33:56 --> 01:33:59 uh, Rustin then? Yep, Baynard Rustin. Yeah, uh, yeah,
01:33:59 --> 01:34:02 yeah, I, I knew you're gonna say that. No, no, no, no, they, they know.
01:34:02 --> 01:34:06 No, you don't have to justify it. No, no, no, it's true,
01:34:06 --> 01:34:08 it's true. I know, but John Lewis was a very,
01:34:09 --> 01:34:12 very important part of that. And yeah,
01:34:12 --> 01:34:16 Rustin was the one that came up with the idea. Him and, him and Martin
01:34:17 --> 01:34:20 went back and forth about it. And because, you know,
01:34:20 --> 01:34:22 Rustin wanted to do it himself at one time,
01:34:24 --> 01:34:27 but he didn't think he would have the backing and
01:34:28 --> 01:34:30 people would look at him differently because of who he was.
01:34:32 --> 01:34:34 So yeah, I get it. Okay,
01:34:35 --> 01:34:39 so, but that's a good question though. That is definitely a good question.
01:34:40 --> 01:34:43 Okay, so long story short, you got the answer wrong. Okay. All right, thank you.
01:34:43 --> 01:34:44 But I knew the answer.
01:34:47 --> 01:34:51 You know, I'm, I'm so glad we have this recorded. That's what we told Grouchy
01:34:52 --> 01:34:55 Gray when, when he dropped them, uh, history bombs on us. Hey,
01:34:56 --> 01:34:58 yeah, I know, but that was, that was good history. Yeah, no, I mean,
01:34:59 --> 01:35:02 that was interesting. And it's
01:35:03 --> 01:35:06 funny because when he, when he brought up, when he brought it to the Victor
01:35:07 --> 01:35:10 thing, I started laughing to myself because I remember as
01:35:11 --> 01:35:15 a kid looking at that label and seeing
01:35:15 --> 01:35:17 the dog next to the Victrola.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:21 And when he brought it to the Victrola thing, I,
01:35:22 --> 01:35:25 I started laughing because I remember that as a kid that was something that was
01:35:25 --> 01:35:28 very well known back then. So,
01:35:29 --> 01:35:32 um, but shout out to the to Dr.
01:35:33 --> 01:35:35 Grouchy Greg for giving— dropping some knowledge on us. Definitely,
01:35:36 --> 01:35:40 definitely. You gotta get that in your culture check, man.
01:35:40 --> 01:35:44 Yeah, yeah, I do. You all right about that? Okay, there you go. We already
01:35:44 --> 01:35:48 know that's gonna be on the, uh, the super hard section.
01:35:48 --> 01:35:52 Yeah, definitely, definitely. That was my first time hearing that one. Yeah,
01:35:52 --> 01:35:55 me too, and I've been around, you know, a lot longer than you have,
01:35:55 --> 01:35:59 so you damn right about that. But anyway,
01:36:00 --> 01:36:03 well, there you have it, folks. That's our— that's our
01:36:04 --> 01:36:08 show for the night. You know, the day after the birthday boy celebrated
01:36:09 --> 01:36:11 his birthday, uh, um,
01:36:13 --> 01:36:17 we are coming up
01:36:17 --> 01:36:20 on 6 years in a couple weeks.
01:36:21 --> 01:36:24 Um, we got— we gotta figure out something that we gotta
01:36:24 --> 01:36:27 do. We gotta do something different for the people. So,
01:36:28 --> 01:36:31 um, we've got to knock our heads together to try to have
01:36:32 --> 01:36:35 a great anniversary show this time around. So we'll come
01:36:35 --> 01:36:38 up with something for you guys. If you guys have suggestions of somebody
01:36:39 --> 01:36:42 you want to hear us interview, let us know, okay? We'll try to see if
01:36:42 --> 01:36:45 we can do that, okay? All right,
01:36:46 --> 01:36:49 we're gonna go ahead and sign off for the night. We thank
01:36:50 --> 01:36:53 you for your time. Uh, we thank you for your patience.
01:36:53 --> 01:36:57 Tune in next week, same time, stay same station.
01:36:57 --> 01:37:00 All right,
01:37:01 --> 01:37:06 tune in
01:37:06 --> 01:37:09 next week, ladies and gentlemen, for another edition of News and Trends
01:37:10 --> 01:37:12 with your hosts Dave and Lynn.