It all started last week, when we published an essay in response to Kendrick Lamar's recent comments on the police murder of Mike Brown, civil unrest in Ferguson, and the role of self-respect in black American life. I wrote the essay, arguing that Kendrick's remarks were tone-deaf and remarkably uncritical of the forces that were actually responsible, if unaccountable, for the death of Mike Brown. Hot 97 host Ebro Darden read and tweeted my piece, commenting that "this writer is afraid of the truth that some black problems stem from our love of the wrong things, instead of loving ourself," and that black writers are "still not dealing with black inability to address our dysfunction due to slave trauma." (n.b., both Ebro and I are black.)

“@BrotherNumpsa: @oldmanebro Mike Brown was murdered by white power, not black insecurities.” — Blame Ebro el Viejo (@oldmanebro) January 13, 2015-->

As far as Twitter spats go, this wasn't really that serious. It was, however, the launch of a potentially worthwhile discussion with one of hip-hop's loudest interlocutors, whose voice reaches seven million tri-state listeners per week.

If you followed Hot 97's most notable interviews in 2014, you'll have noticed that morning show hosts Ebro, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Styles have lately hosted several discussions of hip-hop, race, and notions of justice. From Kendrick Lamar, to Macklemore and Azealia Banks, to local DJ Marcus Jeter whom Ebro hosted a few months back to speak on his encounter with racist, corrupt police in Bloomfield, N.J., a nightmare that revoked Jeter's freedom and derailed his life for two years. In its limited way, hip-hop has much to say about all of this, even the most somber developments in civil rights and black experience. Ebro Darden, with his big, booming voice, may in fact have the answers, Sway.

Interview by Justin Charity (@brothernumpsa)

When Kendrick Lamar says that respect for black people starts within—not with protests, but within—what do you take away from that?

When somebody like Kendrick says that, oftentimes I feel that way, too, because of how we appear. Black people appear to the outside world [via] our music, in our TV shows, in the mainstream. And I’m in it. I’m the first one playing a Bobby Shmurda record. But I’m also playing a Kendrick Lamar record, and I’m also seeing how we respond to certain material or don’t respond to certain material.

I continually have that conversation on the radio. [Hot 97] played Kendrick Lamar’s record [“i”], and this is the third interview where I’ve talked about the fact that the world listening to the radio, nationally, did not embrace “i.” It’s not a hit song.

We like the message, we like the music, it’s an Isley Brothers sample, it’s familiar, it’s soulful—why don’t we like this song?

Matter of fact, I saw a backlash on digital and social media when the record came out, like, “Yo, he ain’t real, what is this bullshit?” But then y’all mad when he comes out says we gotta start respecting ourselves.

Respecting yourself would [be to] talk more deeply about, why was Mike Brown in that situation, and why was that neighborhood policed the way it was? Why is 99 percent of that police precinct white? How come more [black] people aren’t becoming police officers in Ferguson? What are the politics of it? Why is the prosecutor able to get away with what he’s able to get away with? Why aren’t people voting? Why aren’t more people in Ferguson ready to vote? Same thing in Staten Island with Eric Garner.

When we participate, and when we want shit to go the way we want it to go, TV shows get renewed. The Love & Hip-Hops become franchises because we participate in them. When people ask us, “What’s your favorite song?” we say, “‘Loyal’, that’s my shit!” That’s called participation. But when someone asks you to participate in some other shit, you don’t. Because you ain’t got no fucking respect for yourself.

Respecting yourself would [be to] talk more deeply about why was Mike Brown in that situation. and why was that neighborhood policed the way it was? Why is 99 percent of that police precinct white?

Hip-hop has always been fun.

It’s dealt with real shit, too.

It’s been fun, and it’s dealt with real shit. What do you think is missing now that makes people receptive to the fun elements of hip-hop but not necessarily receptive to what Kendrick wants to talk about, or what J. Cole wants to talk about?

J. Cole’s album sold very well, and he has a very large fanbase. Hot 97 has about five million listeners in a week in the tri-state area. If I put on a J. Cole record, I’m hoping that people respond to it. I’m gonna play it, I’m gonna play it, we’re gonna research it, and we’re gonna hope [the audience] responds.

Same thing we did with Kendrick Lamar. I got in arguments up here: We can’t stop playing the Kendrick Lamar record. It’s a good image, and we need to put that out there; we need to play this. But when you’re playing a record and people turn off the radio station, all I know is that the advertisers respect Nielsen’s system of giving us [audience] ratings, and that’s how we pay our bills up here. That’s the set of rules I have to play by.

People do like that stuff (records like “i” and the Cole album), but not as much as they like the mindless stuff, which doesn’t require you to have any emotion one way or another. The same way those [television] programs are mindless. My woman is a Harvard grad. She watches that bullshit. I don’t watch that bullshit with her. I always make fun of her because I think, you went to Harvard, you have a brain, you’re not a thot on the ’​gram, you’re not doing none of that—but you’re watching the shows that breed that shit.

She says, “Yeah, but I just don’t feel like thinking too much right now.”

It’s the same shit in music.

My sister is 10 years older than me. She’s a director of development at a non-profit in D.C., and she watches Love & Hip Hop. She watches Real Housewives of Atlanta, and I’ll watch that shit with her. So that answer—“I don’t want to have to think that hard about it”—where do you think that comes from?

I think most people just wanna be happy. They wanna work, fall in love, love their family, and have fun. They work all day, they have bills, and real shit is happening in their lives. So I think that the average person doesn’t process a song as that important; it either makes them feel good and they like it, or they don’t. That’s it. They’re not looking for a song to have purpose.

When Too $hort’s Born to Mack came out, when I was 10 years old, I fucking loved that tape. My parents and cousins said, “You can’t listen to this shit, it’s gonna have you thinking crazy.” I didn’t start pimping hoes because I listened to Born to Mack. I’m sure there’s some people who did. I didn’t start wanting to be a gang banger because I listened to Straight Outta Compton. But I had parents and other black men around me who taught me, “That’s not how you act, that’s just entertainment, you’re not about that life.”

In the lack of leadership, people just gravitate to whatever it is that everyone else is doing so that they can feel involved in something.

From your vantage, what’s the difference between 2012 and now—between people gravitating to Kendrick Lamar and good kid, versus Kendrick dropping “i” in 2014 and people thinking that it’s corny?

I think Kendrick has shifted because he’s traveled the world and seen other shit. His palate has changed, how he presents himself has changed, and so has the music he wants to make. good kid felt hardcore and had stories of a kid growing up in a neighborhood where he wasn’t as gangsta as the neighborhood. I think everyone could relate to that: the nerdy kid trying to fit in.

I don’t believe most kids are out here trying to be gangbangers. Bad neighborhoods get characterized that way, but most kids don’t want to sell drugs, they don’t want to be in a gang, they don’t want to hurt anybody; they just want to have fun, meet a girl, and look fly. Most people want to do that. Nobody wants to walk around and be that mad every day. Nobody standing outside in fucking cold weather serving nickel bags wants to do that. That’s not a choice that somebody would make; those are last resorts.

good kid felt like a quintessential hip-hop album, with its interludes and a theme, and it was well done. I think this next Kendrick album will have the same idea, and I think people will gravitate back to why “i” was the record that it was, because it fits the body of work that I believe Kendrick is gonna come with. It’s just unfortunate that “i” wasn’t a big hit.

I’m more pissed off because I believe that record, if it was performed by Macklemore, would’ve been all over Top 40 radio and would’ve been the biggest thing in the world; but because it was performed by Kendrick Lamar, who’s a black rapper from L.A., I don’t believe that black radio embraced that record the way they should’ve.

I’m more pissed off because I believe if "I" was performed by Macklemore, would’ve been all over Top 40 radio and would’ve been the biggest thing in the world.

What does “i” make you feel?

I love it. Straight up. I love what it’s saying, I love the sample, I love that it’s acoustic, I love the melody—it feels good when it comes on. Why, what do you feel?

To me, “i” sounds like an urban song that makes me imagine a city grid—

Let me tell you something: We’re so lost. We’re so fucking lost. An Isley Brothers sample sounds poppy? What the fuck? “Happy,” Pharrell—oh, that sounds like a pop record? It’s a fucking gospel record! “Blurred Lines,” oh, it’s a fucking pop record? The fuck outta here! It’s a fucking Marvin Gaye song! That’s part of our fucking fabric! You sound fucking ridiculous! You’re 23 years old! Shut the fuck up sometimes! What’s the other song, the Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars—

“Uptown Funk.”

“Uptown Funk!” Another old-school, black song is the biggest Top 40 record in the world, and black radio is not playing it. Instead we’re playing Rae Sremmurd. I like Rae Sremmurd, good songs—but what the fuck is going on? Motherfuckers is lost.

What you were saying before, about how nobody really wants to hustle and bang for a living; when Kendrick says, “It starts with loving yourself, it doesn’t start with a protest,” what does Kendrick Lamar mean?

If we’re taking good kid, m.A.A.d city at face value, he’s saying that loving yourself and being brave enough to respect yourself so that you don’t succumb to the traps that are out here capturing us, putting us in cages, and making money off of us.

It’s gonna continue to happen to us until we start realizing that the path to getting out of the circumstances we’re in is actually when we start loving ourselves because when we love ourselves, you know what? You love your neighbor. You love your neighborhood. We can uplift one another and create a better reality for ourselves.

This morning, before I got on the train, I went back and watched the interview you did last year with Marcus Jeter, the DJ from New Jersey who got caught up for two years in some corrupt Internal Affairs police business out in Bloomfield, N.J. The cops jammed him up on some targeted bullshit. That was a case where this guy wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, looking the wrong sort of way. The cops just decided that they were going to bully this black guy for two years and get him lost in the system.

It was fucked up.

So when Kendrick says that we have to keep in mind that our own self-respect informs these bigger issues, I listened to Marcus Jeter’s story and thought: no! It was white power that targeted him.

That’s real, too. I don’t believe that what Kendrick is saying is absolute. I think that it’s a part of the story.

What are the facts that we know about the Mike Brown incident prior to him getting killed? Just based on what they told us. They tried to use the liquor store shit. They tried to say he was walking in the middle of the street and that’s why he ended up having an interaction with the cop in the first place. Is that true? We don’t know. None of that adds up to justifying death. None of it. But, I guess I would have to ask, how did you end up having an interaction with the cop in the first place?

What you just said about racist cops: I don’t have any interaction with them. My seatbelt is on. [My hands are] at 10-and-2. Nothing in the whip. No priors. No attitude. Not fucking with them. Should I have to be that way? No. But I love me more, and I’m not getting into it with them.

We’re gonna deal with cops on our terms, not on their terms. If you wanna change some shit with cops, then we gotta participate. We’re not gonna change shit by just protesting and complaining.

By what, then? If not by protesting and complaining, by what? Not to put words in Kendrick’s mouth, even. What do you think?

Change is gonna happen when we start having more [black] police officers, commissioners, and prosecutors, and that’s a process. It’s going to take multiple generations. The Irish, the Italians, when they came to this country, they said we’re going to make sure we’re on the inside.

On that assimilation tip, sure.

Irish, Italian, Asian families, they decided that they were going to be on the inside to make sure that they were represented. Make no mistake, there are black people on the inside in politics and police, and they don’t like none of this criminal behavior either. That doesn’t mean that they believe that Eric Garner or Mike Brown should’ve died.

I don’t believe what Kendrick is saying is absolute. I think that it’s a part of the story.

You’ve also got to understand that these prosecutors are put in by the voting people in those neighborhoods. The Brooklyn District Attorney, he’s gotten a number of black men out of jail who were wrongly put in there, just by becoming the D.A. after the voters in Brooklyn put him in. Those homeowners and people who live in Brooklyn put this black man in charge of their district to represent those voters and their interests. It takes generations. It’s not gonna happen tomorrow.

We can acknowledge that there’s something fishy in Ferguson and Staten Island and how the grand jury decisions played out, yet all of these situations somehow reduce to asking the victim whether they could’ve not done this or that.

I think it’s the ability to learn from the situation that sparks the conversation. How are we gonna learn from Eric Garner and Mike Brown?

What do you think there is to learn?

We need to make sure these prosecutors have our best interests in mind.

I would challenge everyone to think, when you see us, are you proud of how we look? Are we proud of how we look on TV? Are we proud of how we look in these music videos? Are we proud of that? I know a lot of black people that ain’t.

Everybody’s perspective is different. Kendrick’s perspective is different. People change when they see the world. A lot of the time people’s perspective really is just from their bedrooms, and they haven’t seen the world. That doesn’t mean their perspective shouldn’t be heard or respected, but once it’s heard, people need to be like, My man, you need to get a passport. You need to see what’s going on out here.

“Oh, I can’t get a passport because I got a felony.”

Let’s talk about said felony and how you got said felony, and now you can’t travel, and now you think the world is one thing because that’s your only view. We don’t always have the conversation from the beginning. We have the conversation from the moment something went wrong. But how did we get here?

With the Eric Garner situation, a lot of people don’t know that area [on Staten Island] is being gentrified. The reason [the cops] put pressure on him for standing outside is because around the way, down the block, they put up some new condos that’s on the water. The people investing in that area, they want their property values to go up, so they’re putting pressure on the cops. “Get these motherfuckers from hanging outside, looking nuts.” So now you’re living in the projects.

This is America. This is capitalism. The projects cost the government money. You think they’re gonna protect the projects? They’re gonna move you.

“I grew up here, this is my neighborhood.”

Well, do you own anything?

“We never bought anything.”

Not your neighborhood.

“Gentrification, fuck that! I remember this used to be a Kennedy Fried Chicken, now it’s a Starbucks!”

Really? You want a Kennedy Fried Chicken instead of a Starbucks? And let’s talk about the health issues. Let’s talk about what the fuck is actually happening here.