Talib Kweli
Appearances
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Okay. Okay? Are you with me? Yes. Okay.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
What's up, Ronnie? How you feeling?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Oh, man, I love the people. This is my city. Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I did. I was with the Roots. Shout out to the legendary Roots crew.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Those guys are amazing, and I'm happy to share the road with them.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
It was good. Being an American, traveling abroad is very interesting.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
People have a lot of questions. A lot of questions. Thank you for coming to my show at City Winery.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Yeah, it makes it special. Well, I know everybody here is a fan of Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is paid millions of dollars by Spotify for people to listen to his podcast. But as an artist, a musician on Spotify, I get a percentage of a penny. They don't pay any music artists an advance like that. And what's your problem? Disparity. You know what I'm saying? It's a parody.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
So, I mean, streaming is very convenient for the fans. It's not the fans' fault. But if you really want to support music, you should go to Bandcamp. You should go to fans' website. You can come to my Bandcamp. You can come to Blackstar Bandcamp. You can come to QualiClub.com, which is a store where I sell my merch and albums. Anything but streaming, basically. Right, right, right, right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I mean, look, go listen on streaming, but then go actually support the artists. Right, right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Right. Well, everything is dictated by the algorithm right now. And whether it's what you listen to, what you eat, what you watch on television, even your politics. So this idea that online interaction is not real, I feel like that's kind of what's helping our current political climate. A lot of people slept on the fact that particularly the right wing was pushing online.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
And they were saying, you know, don't engage. Just just ignore that. It's not real. And it turns out that these billionaires are using their platforms to to invest and help push policy and politics. And so it's affecting everything. We're turning into like Ready Player One right now.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Not at all. I mean, right now, as you can see, I'm on Blue Sky right now. You know what I'm saying? Because as far as I can tell, Blue Sky is the only one that is not bending the knee to Trump. You know what I'm saying? But, I mean, you know...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
There have been great communities built on TikTok, on Meta, on Facebook, on Instagram, even on X. There have been great communities that have helped people. But at a certain point, you've got to really sort of vote with your dollars and vote with your time and energy. And all our engagement that we voluntarily give to these people, we're just seeing as numbers to them.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
And we don't even own this content. So you have to really think about where you want to put your time and energy.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Yeah, and I think it's important to note that I'm an artist that doesn't have a platinum record, but I'm still on a daily show 30 years later. Right. And I feel like that, you know... Thank you. I hope that can inspire people who feel overwhelmed by not getting the props they deserve as artists.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Yeah, you don't have to be mainstream to be successful.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I mean, yeah, I think that when it comes to hip-hop, too many people... think of hip-hop as what the corporations are pushing on them. And the hip-hop community is way bigger than what you hear on the radio or what you see on videos. The hip-hop community is very vast. Matter of fact, I'm gonna defend the hip-hop community more than any genre.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I feel like hip-hop has more social justice workers, more activists, more people to speak up than any genre, hands down. So even though we're pushed this sort of corporate, greedy, capitalistic, sexist, violent image of hip-hop, when you look at the hip-hop community as a whole, This is where the artists are becoming activists at.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I would recommend that you stay far away from the music industry. Right? And build industry around yourself. You know what I'm saying? Like, make yourself a commodity. Make yourself, not a commodity, but make yourself, make it about yourself and bring a traffic to what you're doing as opposed to sending traffic outside of yourself.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I hate to ask you, like. I'm here for the questions. I know, but like. They call me Dr. Fumar Johnson. I want all the smoke.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Well, speaking on behalf of the entire black community. because I'll speak for the Asians and you speak for the I am king of the blacks obviously um I think that um the way that the way that people feel this despair they feel to feel like the system is against them and they can't trust our leaders and they can't trust the politicians welcome to how it feels to be black The whole time.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
We've been feeling like that the whole time. So, this is not... Well, this kind of sucks. It does suck. And this is why people, you know, what they say, they say they want the rhythm but not the blues. You know what I'm saying? Sure. I will say this. Right now, I see a push... You know, people out there like Free Luigi. You know what I'm saying?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I see this push for people to be like, eat the rich and be anti-oligarch and this push to explain class divisions and class warfare and how these billionaire class, they don't care about race. Race is a social construct, of course. It's not even real. But this idea that we have to focus on class above everything.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
And I want to make sure that we don't erase the marginalized people of color who started this fight for us and who often get erased at this time because the top 90 percent, over the top 90 percent, is straight white male on purpose.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
So in America, because America started the idea of, you know, with the Atlantic slave trade, the construct of whiteness being above all, this kind of started with the birth of America. because it's baked into America. You can't separate race and class. Years ago, James Carville said, um, it's the economy, stupid. But now, it's the racism, stupid. You know what I'm saying?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
Like, you can't separate everything that they do when it comes to immigration, when it comes to federal workers, when it comes to the economy. It's based on white nationalist ideas. This is why Elon Musk is doing Nazi salutes and no one cares. You know what I'm saying? Or they're even trying to defend it. Well, you know what I'm saying?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
I wouldn't say no one cares, but yeah, not enough people care.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
We are our own tribe here. And I want to add to that, it's not they're fooling us by making us think it's about Democrat versus Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I've never been a Democrat. I voted Democrat before. I've never voted Republican, but I've never identified as a Democrat. This is not about Democrat versus Republican. This is about good versus bad.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
This is about colonizers versus the colonized. This is about the oligarchs versus the poor and working-class people. It's not about Democrat and Republican. In this country, they change philosophies anyway.