Talib Kweli on the war on drugs, internet trolls, and how "woke" has become a meme – Vox

In March, rapper and activist Talib Kweli got so frustrated with Donald Trump news, he decided to make a visit to the US Capitol.

He spent about a week listening to anti-Trump figures and emerged with a manifesto for activism in the Trump era. Hashtags and RTs are cute and make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but without actual flesh on the ground, there is no movement, he wrote in Medium post that called for sustained protest and political engagement.

Its a theme he came back to several times in an interview with me earlier this month: There are people who really have convinced themselves that all they need to do is make a cool Facebook post, he said. That type of shit is really, really, extra corny.

Kweli, a fixture of the New York underground rap scene in the late 90s and early 2000s, has weaved activism into his music for his entire career. His collaborations with Mos Def, together called Black Star, and solo work have spawned multiple albums meditating on issues like mass incarceration, misogyny and police brutality. Throughout his career, hes advocated for social justice, protesting and speaking at Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests.

Today, Kweli runs the independent record label Javotti Media and continues to make music, his latest a collaboration record The Seven with rapper Styles P. He continues his political advocacy and vocally opposes the Trump administration.

I chatted with Kweli on the phone about the danger of a renewed war on drugs, why we need to engage with Twitter trolls, and fake woke-ness on social media.

Whats your reaction to the recent Jeff Sessions memo and the pullback of Obama-era criminal justice laws? Some are saying this will be the return of the worst days of the war on drugs.

The only thing I can say is that the people who support Trump and Sessions and sat before him knowing he said Elizabeth Warren is Pocahontas, grab them by the pussy doesnt bother them, all the Mexicans are rapists doesnt bother them all of these things that Trump has said, if none of those things bother them maybe when Sessions comes for their pot, theyll start to care. If humanity doesnt matter to you, accountability doesnt matter to you, bigotry doesnt matter maybe when it comes to you getting high, then maybe youll start to care.

So you feel like theres been a cultural shift in attitude toward drug use?

Oh, absolutely. Especially when it comes to weed, we shifted to a society of everyone smoking pot. We all smoke weed. We pretend we dont, but the whole society does. Even your hardcore racist KKK dude is smoking a big fat blunt.

Todays libertarians, I know many who are not racist, who are not bigots they just believe in certain things about the government. Theyre really about their freedoms. A lot of them overlap when it comes to government regulation and states rights with the Confederates and the Nazis. But a lot of them know people with meth habits or heroin habits that they have sympathy for. Thats been the shift and change, pretty recently. They see the effect of the drug war on these people directly.

Given that cultural change, do you think Obama went far enough in terms of trying to dismantle some of the worst war on drugs laws? Hes faced criticism that he should have done more.

Well, in order to be the United States president, you have to be certain things. You need to be a Christian. You need to be an imperialist. Before Obama, you needed to be white. At this point, you need to be a man. Obama was never going to be a revolutionary. He has always been a pragmatist and always been someone who has tried to work with both sides.

So when people say Obama didnt go far enough, from my perspective I think he did what he could do considering the crazy amount of obstructionism he faced. I think Obama being a black man and having that experience allows him to see things from a different perspective than most US presidents before him.

Now, intentions dont matter as much as results matter when it comes to policy. But I do think his intentions were to roll back mass incarceration he let out more prisoners out than any other recent president, and he told me personally that he wanted his legacy to be criminal justice reform. He said that to a room full of artists. I think Obama used what he thought could work to try to help more traditionally grassroots causes. But I think theres different ways to do it and his way was definitely working within the system. His way was not revolutionary, and I dont think he ever pretended to be.

Youve always been critical of consumer culture in your music. Do you think the more consumer elements of our culture and celebrity worship are all things that led to Trump?

We worship the dollar. Our holidays are Black Friday and Christmas. Our religion is consumerism and Trump is a patron saint of that religion. Anybody who was in New York City in the 80s knows the whole concept of greed is good, capitalism is good that was being sold as mainstream culture. We had yuppies, people celebrating capitalism, people celebrating credit. That was a big thing in the 80s you spent what you didnt have. And Trump, with his casinos and real estate, those were businesses all about spending what you dont have. And he sold that image. He put his name on anything. He was an empty suit.

And that image is one reason why Trump has been repeatedly name checked in lots of rap songs although youve never done this in your own music. What do you think about that switch from admiration to criticism for so many people in the hip-hop world during and after this election?

I hesitate to say that rapping about Trump, seen as a symbol of opulence or a symbol of decadent wealth, was necessarily admiration. When you hear him in music back in the day, it wasnt as much admiration as it was acknowledgement for what he represents.

In the 80s and early 90s, especially New York rap, you heard a lot of references to Trump. In 96 and 97, Raekwon was rapping Guess whos the black Trump. But they arent saying Im admiring him as a human being. They are saying hes the universal symbol of wealth. Its actually very dehumanizing of Trump. Its not about who he really is. Its not like theyre saying I admire the man for his politics or the way he treats women.

As far as the activist or the conscious community, Trump was always known as the guy trying to get the Central Park Five on death row. He took out a full-page ad in the New York Post saying they were guilty when they turned out to be innocent.

I was 15 when this happened. I was the same age as those kids when they got caught up in that. It was vivid. They were called the wolf pack by the media. So any random group of black kids was also called a wolf pack. I remember going to the mall and they made a rule at the mall that if theres more than four of yall, you cant walk together cause then you constitute a wolf pack. They wasnt happening to the white kids. The Central Park Five had a very real effect on my life.

Im really impressed by how much you engage with trolls online. But there is also a line of thinking on the left that engaging with them legitimizing them in some way or that that tactic isnt going to change any minds.

I would believe that if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders were president. Id believe it if you said when you ignore the trolls, theyll go away. But racism is a disease, and what disease do you know of that, if you ignore it, it goes away? Nothing. So this whole ignore thing thats the result of an overly polite, nonconfrontational society, and thats from people, and some on the left as well, who benefit from the racist status quo.

The fact of the matter is, now theyre changing visa applications so they can look at your social media accounts. We have Senate congressional hearings with Republicans and Democrats saying that Russians bots have influenced the election with fake news. We got AI running around this motherfucker, and people are saying we can ignore the online space. That the online world isnt real. We dont have the luxury to say that.

If Im a guy whos only on Twitter, then you have every right to criticize me. But Im not that guy. When Twitters gone, Ill still be doing what I do in the flesh, whether its making music for the movement or physically putting my boots on the ground. But I agree that just tweeting or just posting on Facebook is wack. There are people who really have convinced themselves that all they need to do is make a cool Facebook post. That type of shit is really, really, extra corny.

Speaking of, I saw in a recent interview that you used scare quotes around the word woke.

People be like Im woke when they just arent. Others use it to disparage people of color. Some people think its a trendy word and dont want to use it just to be trendy. Its just become a meme.

Maybe when you hear the term woke, youre thinking of people who may have good intentions but who are not really going to marches or rallies or doing the actual work. But thats your association with the word. There is also a large number of people who are not maybe as savvy as a journalist or as a rapper. Who say woke and mean it sincerely. They dont know, theyve never been to a march.

But let me go further theres a lot of people who organize and rally, contribute money, and still use the term woke. Who are not knowing where the trend, where the culture has moved who are not as hip as you and I might be. Thats why I evoke the term at all because of them.

What are your thoughts on the debate over punching Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader who got punched at the Trump inauguration protest in a viral video?

I am anti-violent. I dont believe that violence solves problems. But I am pro-karma. So when I see karma play itself out, I am not mad at it. Would I be the guy to punch Richard Spencer? That wouldnt be me. He would have to physically threaten me for me to want to punch him, me personally. But when I see a white boy going all out of his way to use his privilege that white boy who punched him knew that he wasnt going to get shot by the cops as quickly as a black dude I think, well the right calls us snowflakes all the time. Okay, this guy isnt a snowflake!

I am not crying for any ethno-nationalists or any guy who likes Pepe the frog to get punched in the face. Thats the consequence of that free speech theyre always talking about. Freedom of speech isnt freedom from consequence.

Whats the difference between the politically conscious rappers of today versus your generation?

The most glaring difference is with the hip hop that I listened to when I was growing up, the consciousness was more wear-it-on-your-sleeve. There were songs about blackness, wearing dashikis, all coming from a strong pro-black strain in our community.

As far as the music artists now that are pushing that pro-black message, theyre more in tune with the sonics and the frequencies of what the average person not as studied is on. So, I bring up Kendrick and J. Cole a lot. Those are artists that are making songs that are highly successful and when you hear them, you dont automatically think consciousness or activism. But when you listen to the layers, its like a Trojan horse.

These younger artists who are conscious, who are inspired by my generation, they have gotten better, as they should have, at the messaging to new audiences with the way that they are making their music.

Whats your message to progressives and activists today?

I cant really say that Im in a position to give a message to the activists. My job in that situation is to show solidarity with people doing the work and not tell them what to do. Its for me to listen, for them to tell me what to do. Thats the best way I can be an ally.

Everybody else you gotta put your flesh on the ground. Listen to what these front-lines activists are saying. Just posting isnt enough.

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Talib Kweli on the war on drugs, internet trolls, and how "woke" has become a meme - Vox