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Tune in today June 16th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

8:46 – Dave Chappelle

20,293,000 YouTube views.

What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where a comedian has more reach than any musician?

One in which Chappelle is trusted by his audience, because he’s never lied to them.

Chappelle’s got a long history of going his own way. Most notably when he walked away from his Comedy Central show. Word on the street was that he should continue, take those millions from the man! But it no longer felt right to Chappelle so he moved on. In a world where no one forgoes bucks…NO ONE!

That’s the country we live in, money talks and we’re the living proof, there ain’t no limit to what money can do, money talks. That’s what Ray Davies sang with the Kinks on the unheralded “Preservation Act 2” double album. Ray didn’t complain people weren’t listening, he just did his act. Diehard fans knew it, went to see the band live. And eventually, the Kinks signed with Arista and had another slew of hits. Meanwhile, Ray is as irascible as ever.

That’s a rock star.

Those aren’t musicians today.

What we’ve got is a ton of uneducated, unskilled crybabies who are pissed you’re not listening and they’re not rich. Oh, I’ll get e-mail from people saying that’s not them, with an MP3 attached…they’re too stupid to see that they are the problem, and far from the solution.

So Dave Chappelle pays his dues. He’s very good at what he does. And what he does is not exactly like what anybody else does. Sure, he’s a standup comedian, but he’s not an imitation, he’s an original. Maybe you don’t like him, that doesn’t bother him, he’s not about to compromise his act to satiate you, that’s no life, certainly not for an artist.

And Chappelle is paid the big bucks. And it’s not like he’s unavailable. And now, a few weeks after the death of George Floyd, Chappelle speaks out.

Sponsored by Netflix.

And you wonder why Netflix wins the streaming wars. You’ve got to be artist-friendly. That used to be HBO, but HBO would dither and go to pilot and then not make your show. Netflix buys the idea, sets you on your way and doesn’t interfere. And the dirty little secret of artistic greatness is it’s hard to achieve. It’s not math. You try to walk the razor’s edge but even the greats fall off. It’s kind of like baseball, if you hit .300, you’re in the Hall of Fame.

So, does Netflix put the production behind its paywall? OF COURSE NOT! As a matter of fact, you couldn’t even see it on the service. No, Netflix thought that what Chappelle was saying was so important, they had to make it available to all, for free, on YouTube.

Meanwhile, the major record companies believe YouTube is enemy #1. Because it’s about the money. Money first, art second. The labels don’t want to leave a single dollar on the table. And you wonder why they’re hated. All this testimony about black lives mattering…they’ve been screwing black artists from time immemorial. BMG said it was gonna review old contracts, adjust royalty rates, but the big three? NOT A PEEP!

You can’t give away money, what would the shareholders say, you’d make a smaller salary, the artists are fungible, screw-em.

And word on the street was Chappelle’s twenty seven minute plus screed was not funny.

Hannah Gadsby wasn’t funny, and her specials are some of the best on Netflix.

You see greats stretch the medium, they don’t conform to it.

But there are a few jokes in 8:46. But mostly it’s storytelling. Forget all the whites getting together to try to push the black ball forward. In most cases it’s a circle jerk. Best to just listen to Brother Chappelle. Because he’s schooling us in this screed. Whites have little knowledge of black history, and they believe black history is a joke, just a way for African-Americans to feel good about themselves, if it was so important they’d already know about it, it would be in schoolbooks…written by whites and approved by whites. Come on, Betsy DeVos, the queen of private schools, do you think she gives a rat’s ass about black history, no she just wants to eradicate it, along with the underfunded public schools blacks are forced to attend. No, not everybody can go to a great private school, no matter how much choice you say there is, we don’t live in Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” If you know math, you know that’s impossible!

So Chappelle starts telling a story and you’ve got no idea where it’s going. He’s talking about the earthquake, back in ’94, in Los Angeles. He ultimately says how scared he was. And that was what, like thirty five seconds long? That cop had his knee on George Floyd’s neck for EIGHT MINUTES AND FORTY SIX SECONDS!

That drove the length of time home. I was in L.A. during the earthquake. It was like the end of the world. If it had been eight minutes and forty six seconds long I would have died of fright.

So, George Floyd calls out for his mother. Chappelle says George KNEW HE WAS GONNA DIE!

Chappelle says how on his deathbed, his father called out for his grandfather.

I don’t want to give it all away, but just when you think he’s meandering, you find out he’s not, Chappelle’s ties it all together.

And the message is powerful and well-executed.

But what struck me is what I mentioned at the top. The people trust Chappelle.

Let me ask you, who can you trust?

Certainly not the President. Nor the DNC either.

The corporations? Their business model is screwing you over.

The cops? I’m white and I’m scared of the cops! They’ve never been there for me, they’ve only hassled me.

And I’ve sat down for the national anthem. Yup, people tell me to get up at the baseball stadium, the sixties were fifty years ago. But if you’re not willing to question authority, think for yourself, then you’re a lemming, a victim with no input. America is the land of the individual. And not only Republicans can be individuals, remember that.

So, we used to trust our rock stars. But can we trust Jay Z when he keeps telling us he’s a business, man! Or Kanye who supports Trump and can’t stop bitching that everybody’s against him? Oh, Kanye is bipolar, but we’d rather just watch him self-destruct than get him in treatment, embrace him medicated.

As for the whites?

THEY’RE ALL AFRAID!

They all remember the Dixie Chicks. Whether they’re in country or pop, rock and in some cases even hip-hop. You can’t alienate a potential customer. Everybody’s watched “Shark Tank,” everybody thinks they’re a business, everybody’s got a home-schooled MBA when the truth is the heart and soul of our country is the denigrated liberal arts.

And they want to open the universities with social distancing. The only reason to go to college is to interact with others, hear contrary opinions and grow up. And it’s an impossibility if there’s social distancing, which won’t be observed anyway, but the educational institutions need the bucks.

As for bucks… Even investment funds got money from the government. That’s right, they made millions but the government gives them more while you’re broke and can’t make ends meet.

But they keep dangling that carrot, you can be just like them.

But Chappelle makes a good case how slavery wasn’t that long ago. Listen and you’ll see. Hell, Hitler killed Jews who practiced other religions, he said it was in their blood. You can’t outrun your race or your religion, your background. And when you grow up Jewish like myself, you’re taught to stand up, to correct people when they make anti-Semitic remarks. You see if you don’t correct people, they don’t know any better.

As for those who need to be corrected…

Only a comedian like Chappelle can properly eviscerate Laura Ingraham. All the writing in the paper…who are these people? Chappelle has a name, they don’t. And you don’t see any Republicans standing up to her while they lionize Candace Owens. Chappelle takes Owens down too. Just because you found one African-American to take your side, to become a Republican, that does not mean the right is not racist.

So you listen to Chappelle and his message sticks with you.

Listen to today’s hit music and you’re forgetting it while you’re listening to it. Much of it is made for a good time. Well, THINGS AREN’T SO GOOD RIGHT NOW!

So we need messengers, we need leaders.

But we don’t have any in government. And we don’t have any in business. Hell, Elon Musk called for Amazon to be broken up because it wouldn’t sell an anti-Covid book. But that goes against the right of a business to sell whatever it wants to, for Twitter and Facebook to disallow speech, but forget the law, when some bozo with power and a megaphone says otherwise, people believe it.

But Chappelle is not a bozo and he’s got a great big megaphone.

He says it wasn’t time for him to weigh in as a celebrity, it was the time of the people, they were doing a great job, as for criticism for laying back, he’s been saying this stuff all along. What a breath of fresh air in an era where celebrities are using the death of George Floyd as a marketing tool.

So the only person with universal purchase in America is Trump. He’s the only one who everyone knows almost everything about. Everybody else has a sliver of his audience.

But who is number two? Who else could get 20+ million views on YouTube?

And don’t compare this with music streams. Music is made to be repeated, visual entertainment is not. And, the Chappelle video hasn’t even been up for five days!

Watch this. It’ll open your eyes. And make you think. And that’s what we need more of, thinking instead of knee-jerk opinions. Our country has become close-minded. And money is used to keep thought controlled. And those with money say they’re inviolate, that complaints against them are class warfare. Then how do we categorize the constant harassment of African-Americans?

Oh, that’s right, we ignore it.

But Dave Chappelle cannot be ignored.

Severance: A Novel

I found out about it through “Rolling Stone.”

The last three episodes of the second season of “Ramy” are ASTOUNDING!

The second season does not start off like the first. There isn’t as much humor, there’s a lot of religion. I was wondering if I’d written about the series too soon.

And then…

There’s the episode about Ramy’s father.

The one about his uncle, Naseem.

And then a long one about Ramy, where the loose ends are tied up, or not.

Now Felice has a problem with Ramy, the character. Because on many levels he’s a loser. No, more of a screw-up. I don’t remember this in any sitcom previously, where the main character creates problems but is not ultimately lovable. Doesn’t everybody love Raymond? Everybody does not love Ramy.

And so many issues are addressed. Love. What is it, who should you do it with? Can you lead with your head instead of your heart? And then there’s timing and information and…it’s hard to lock on and sustain.

Which brings me to Marc Maron’s podcast with Jerry Seinfeld. It’s a must-listen!

episode-1129-jerry-seinfeld

I’ve got a problem with Maron in that he does not prepare for his interviews, as a result he asks basic questions of guests that even a casual fan would know the answer to. After all, Jerry Seinfeld has been in the public eye for over three decades, he’s been scrutinized, laundered…

But ultimately this podcast becomes a conversation. It’s just not information, and that is very interesting.

Also interesting is when Maron says he gave up his show on IFC, because it just wasn’t going anywhere. The outlet was not going to increase the budget, the audience was not shooting up, why do it?

This is what the system doesn’t understand, that the paradigm changes.

Every comedian should aspire to a sitcom. The only problem is we no longer live in a three/four network world. You can make it and no one can watch it. You can put it on your resume but it won’t buy you much.

Kind of like a book. I’m constantly dunned to write a book. Sure, like a comedian with a sitcom I can promote it as evidence of gravitas, but no one is more out of touch with the digital world than book publishers. But even worse, the number of people who read books, well, let’s say the number of readers per almost all books is positively anemic! And it takes so long to do. You get an advance, you take a year or two or five or ten to then write a book that almost no one reads. I hit send and I reach a huge multiple of what almost all writers of books reach. But since it’s free and it’s online, it gets no respect. Except from readers. You see publishing is a club. And the world today is littered with clubs that only mean something to their members. Woo-hoo, you’re a member of Soho House! Yippie-ei-o tayey! If you think it’s exclusive, you don’t know with a connection anybody can get in. But this is how people measure themselves, by these phony markers placed in a book no one is reading. Kind of like likes. They’re meaningless.

But the podcast is interesting because of Jerry. Who is definitely different. He’d definitely on the spectrum somewhere, albeit high functioning. But he did the work when others didn’t. He wrote when the others were hanging out and doing drugs. Richard Lewis made a career out of being unprepared, winging it on stage, but those who’ve followed in his footsteps…kinda like Maron himself, that’s what’s wrong with his comedy, that’s what’s wrong with his execrable intros to his podcasts!

He wasn’t gonna have me on anyway. He’s already pissed about something else I wrote. Who cares, like I need to say I was on Marc Maron? Whoop-de-doo!

Not that I have a problem with the man. The one time we met he was cordial. But that’s personal, and this is business.

But most people don’t have Hulu so they can’t even watch “Ramy,” never mind having the outlet and pulling it up. There’s too much product. But we’re all looking for a recommendation, but we trust almost none of the traditional infrastructure, it’s hype.

So why did I trust “Rolling Stone”?

Well, I didn’t.

Well, I guess I did.

Anyway, “Rolling Stone” raised the price to $70 a year. For twelve issues. That’s insane! Especially when it’s included in Apple News+ for ten bucks a month, along with “New York” which essentially costs the same, at least with digital access.

So I can rationalize my ten bucks a month for Apple News+. Even though I don’t love the format.

And if you’re coming out every month you’re inherently irrelevant. In an era where this morning’s news is history this afternoon…you’ve inherently taken yourself out of the discussion. And the truth is “Rolling Stone” has a very active website, with some articles of note, but there are too many articles, what ever happened to curation? But it’s even worse over at “Billboard,” an endless spew of irrelevant stuff written by those who can’t write. But I get that as part of Apple News+ too, but I never subscribed, “Billboard” is an alternative universe for those not really in the game. Then again, it prints charts the labels love, because they are inherently manipulated, if it was just streams, why would you need “Billboard”? Then again, how interesting is this news, isn’t it supposed to be about the music? And if anyone thinks today’s music is the heartbeat of the culture, they haven’t watched television.

But I’m talking about a book.

Yes, “Rolling Stone” put the idea in my mind. So I looked “Severance” up, and it got uber-good reviews, from respectable outlets.

So I downloaded the sample chapter to my Kindle. Try before you buy, it’s the only way to do business…isn’t that how dope dealers work?

And I’d be lying if I told you I loved the sample, but I’d come off a bad book and “Severance” was my best option and…

This was no Rufi Thorpe. Ling Ma had gotten an MFA, and you could tell. Because the writing was somewhat stilted.

And I was pissed I bought it until about halfway through, when the book, the characters, the situation, came alive.

Yes, it’s a pandemic book. And what is so fascinating is despite being two years old, it presages the Covid-19 era. The virus is different…you don’t get it from people and you don’t die soon…but is your allegiance to your job or your life? And who do you look to lead you? And what happens when the institutions decline and hit their demise?

You’re on your own buddy.

But Candace yearns for connection and hooks up with others who’ve survived. Led by Bob, an authoritarian. There’s always someone who takes control, do you become subservient or stand on your principles or…there are no clear answers.

And what are the consequences of breaking the rules?

You go through school playing a game, and then you graduate and there is no game, even though many try to construct one. Maybe you’ve got to bend the rules to get ahead, even break them! Maybe the penalties for screwing up are not that severe. Maybe those in control of the game are clueless.

So…

Most people are not famous. Even if they think they are based on their social media follower numbers. Sure, the celebrities are no longer as big as they think they are, as big as they used to be, I mean why in hell do we listen to actors, who recite others’ lines, but that does not mean you’re the new star, even though you may think you are.

No, you’re probably overeducated and thrilled that you have this boring irrelevant job. In Candace’s case, printing Bibles.

And choices…do you get picked up for the one night stand or do you stay at home out of the fray missing out…

So once you get into it, “Severance” is a whole world, you will no longer think about this world, the one you’re inhabiting every day. It’s like Candace is a good friend, you’re continuing to learn more about her, her parents, her upbringing, her relationships, as she tries to figure out how to navigate life. Just like you, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. The world is littered with lawyers who hate their jobs, they went to law school because their parents told them to, got jobs, and now this is their life, banging out the hours, they never questioned the system, to their disadvantage.

And there’s wisdom:

“It was the anonymity. He wanted to be unknown, unpossessed by others’ knowledge of him. That was freedom.”

That’s why I live in the big city, nobody knows who I am, and in Los Angeles everybody’s so self-centered they don’t care who I am. And that’s just how I like it. I’ve lived in small communities where you’re instantly labeled and judged and cannot get out of the hole they’ve put you in. Furthermore, I’m not the usual suspect. I don’t hone off my edges to make friends, then stab them behind their back. I’m upfront about everything, but if we connect, I’m as loyal as they get.

“When other people are happy, I don’t have to worry about them. There is room for my happiness.

BINGO! I’m always worrying about other people’s happiness. I can’t relax until everybody’s taken care of, and when they are, there’s room for me. It’s kinda like Ramy’s dad… Farouk tells Ramy he has to live in the future so Ramy and his sister and their mother can live in the present. Reminded me of my dad…it ain’t easy being responsible for a household.

“Evan took special pleasure in teasing Ashley, the way a schoolboy might make fun of a girl he crushed on.”

I don’t know why this is, but it’s true. I saw it in the “Rugrats” once. Chuckie or Tommy kicked his crush on the playground. You don’t know how to show your affection, so you make trouble, just trying to gain their attention, just trying to get close.

“New York has a way of forgetting you.”

The city lives on, you are forgotten.

“I have always lived in the myth of New York more than in its reality. It is what enabled me to live there for so long, loving the idea of something more than the thing itself.”

You’re young. You move to New York. It’s difficult. And eventually…you move on, to where the living is easier.

Kinda like L.A. But L.A. is a giant suburb, so…you used to be able to move to the San Fernando Valley, but now even that is becoming expensive, so…maybe you do leave.

The country is reopening as Covid-19 is flaring and you don’t know whether to be scared or elated. You don’t know whether to live your life or stay home. And one thing is for sure, there is no leadership, no one is truly in charge. And then there are those convinced they know the way, who refuse to wear masks, who refuse to adhere to safety measures…in “Severance,” some of those die too.

So, the book won’t instantly hook you and wow you, like “Knockout Queen,” but when it’s over, it’ll stick with you, you’ll have a hard time reintegrating into regular life. And what more can you ask from art?

It’s Napster.

What do we know about Napster?

It happened as a result of technological change. Same deal here, but instead of high speed connections, it’s smartphone cameras.

In the late nineties and early 2000s, only college students had high speed connections. The public came along later. Same deal with smartphones. Sure, some had them in Ferguson, but now everybody has one. Come on, go on YouTube, whenever there’s a newsworthy event, there’s footage. A rock falls onto the freeway and hits a car? There’s video! Almost nothing is undocumented.

And the people trading files were pissed at the record companies. They did studies back then. Labels were some of the most hated entities extant, down there with cable companies. People were sick and tired of paying ten plus bucks for a CD with one good track. The labels thought they were winning, by eliminating the single, but they were wrong.

Today the rank and file don’t believe the government works for them. That the game is rigged, that it’s run by a professional cabal and corporations and they have no say.

So they protest.

So what does Trump do? CALL OUT THE NATIONAL GUARD! Push back, employ tear gas.

This is exactly what the labels did in the early 2000s, to support their business model, they sued their customers. Nobody agreed with this philosophy other than the labels themselves. This just made customers angrier and even the press questioned the tactic.

Meanwhile, revenue went up. This file-trading thing needed to be eradicated, but CDs were still flying out of the bins and the iTunes Store came along and proved…what, I’m not sure. That people without technological skills would pay for music while the rest of the customer base continued to steal? And now the labels’ great fear was reality, in other words, the single was broken out of the album. Oh, you could still buy an album, but why?

And then revenue cratered. To the point where half of recorded music income was lost, and it only bounced back with streaming services, most notably Spotify, which offered a free tier.

You still hear insiders saying they want to get rid of the free tier. And they keep bitching about music on YouTube. But the truth is the free tier, supported by advertising, was a disincentive to steal. Same deal with YouTube. These days, streaming numbers on paid services oftentimes outstrip those on YouTube. If Spotify had been able to launch earlier, music on YouTube wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But not all labels would sign on, and therefore Spotify’s launch in the U.S. was delayed.

And let’s be clear, it is about Spotify. Sure, you read the Apple numbers, but the truth is subscribers on Spotify are much more active, they listen to more music, and that’s what drives the business, active customers. As for Amazon…it’s got a unique strategy. The Echo is a Trojan Horse and unlike Spotify or Apple Amazon has a hi-res tier. To gain a foothold you must be different, which Amazon is. Try out their high quality tier. It’s not as expensive as Tidal’s. And Tidal is a joke, a gnat on the ass of paid music consumption.

So, the Democrats and Republicans have been acting in a vacuum for decades now. It’s a closed game, and you’re affected by who wins and loses. Disruption was impossible, because of the Constitution! There was no way around it.

So, taxes were lowered for the rich. Republicans thought no one would notice. But today news is everywhere, and many people noticed.

And the Republicans have been focusing on social issues to win elections. Anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage…but these don’t put food on the plate. Of course there’s a hard core of constituents who continue to vote Republican, but there are people who buy CDs TO THIS DAY! Furthermore, you’ll find people who won’t sign up for a paid streaming service. They’ve got all the answers. What if there’s no cell signal? They’re too ignorant to know that you can download the tracks to the device, so as long as it has juice, you’ve got tunes. They say they need to own it. When the format they possess won’t even last. Come on, when was the last time you saw a VCR in somebody’s house, never mind a LaserDisc player. As for DVDs… My computers don’t have drives. My last DVD player didn’t have an HDMI port…so what did I do? I tossed it, and didn’t bother to replace it.

We live in a world of on demand. And one of the great things about on demand is the product can always be improved and your gear is never obsolete. Even the car companies went to on demand. They outsourced manufacturing to third parties and they only want delivery when they need it, oftentimes just hours before car construction. And I know I’m mixing virtual with physical. But like the hoi polloi, who are constantly denigrated, the car companies had no savings and look to the government to be saved during times of crisis. So, the government rescues corporations and banks, and you’re plum out of luck. Maybe you got $1200. See how long that lasts. It’s socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor.

But it gets worse! The rich constantly brag about their lifestyle and believe since they’re wealthy they know better, fomenting anger in the lower classes, who are the overwhelming majority in numbers, if not bucks.

But big time media, in bed with those in the government, say politics is all about the money, even the Supreme Court endorses this, and gets rid of the Voting Rights Act to boot.

As for said media… This was the same media that beat up the record business for being unprepared and ignorant, meanwhile, it was just a matter of time until the internet came for them, and most of them were wiped out. And even the big ones today are essentially begging. It’s a glorified GoFundMe campaign. Keep local news alive! Why? You charged us more for less and it gotten to the point where your newshole is so small, I don’t need to subscribe. Instead of investing, you cut in order to maintain your profit margin. So, the only publications which survive are the “Wall Street Journal,” owned by Rupert Murdoch, who uses the paper as a right wing mouthpiece, irrelevant of income, the “Washington Post,” owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, and the “New York Times,” which is so self-congratulatory while at the same time being self-flagellating that it seems removed from what is happening on the street. Furthermore, these outlets just report, as the country’s government turns to the right, as authoritarianism raises its ugly head. These reporters are tied into the system, they’re friends with the bigwigs, they want to get rich too, so the consumer is left out.

Yes, the consumer has been taking it up the yin-yang for years.

But now the consumer has the tools, the aforesaid smartphone and social media distribution, to get its message heard.

And then George Floyd gets killed in Minneapolis…

They’ve been killing African-Americans willy-nilly for years, but there were no cameras, there was always an excuse. Hell, until there was footage in Georgia the jogger was at fault, he was breaking into houses, you’ve got to take the white man’s word.

So, after being sick of overpaying for one good track on a CD, being labeled lazy, the African-American community revolted.

But it turned out they were not the only ones who were pissed. The white people came out too. Other people of color. There were demonstrations in 750 cities in America. You see it’s no longer an African-American problem, it’s an underclass problem. And compared to the wealthy, almost all of us are members of the underclass.

So, what do the insiders and fat cats tell us to do? VOTE! As if that’s gonna make a difference. They believe in the system, after all, it’s working for them! You know, buy CDs!

And then there are the people afraid to steal. But when they see everybody surrounding them doing it, they jump on board.

You see disruption doesn’t only happen in technology. And right now, we’re seeing politics disrupted.

The Republicans sold their souls to Trump, to keep their jobs. Just like the execs at the labels, they were thinking about themselves first.

And the Democrats said we had to return to the past, we could not venture into the future. The people couldn’t handle it, they didn’t want it, they needed to feel safe, they abhorred chaos, so the DNC nominated Joe Biden, someone no one is excited about. The Democrats are rock in an era of hip-hop. And let’s be clear, most rockers HATE hip-hop! They give it no respect, they say it isn’t music, they vilify streaming services, meanwhile hip-hop keeps getting bigger.

And AOC comes on the scene, a young ‘un, part of the demo, who understands the plight of those disadvantaged by the system, and she is EXCORIATED! Shut up you loud mouth, you’re too big for your britches, get in line and be quiet.

But she was on to something.

And then you’ve got septuagenarian Bernie Sanders, who suddenly seems like a seer. In light of Covid-19, Medicare-for-all seems necessary, to protect the health of the country’s citizens from those who are too poor to get medical treatment if nothing else. And as the big get bigger, Amazon and Google rule and we suffer, Biden is in bed with them.

You might think I’m a party of one, you might ignore my call, just like you ignored it in the days of Napster. But yesterday on the “Washington Post” app I saw this:

“New generation of activists, deeply skeptical of Democratic Party, resists calls to channel energy into the 2020 campaign”

Why trust the Democrats? They’re disconnected from the voting public. They’re just the party of the elite, the entrenched, who want to maintain what they’ve got. At least the Republicans are more honest about it.
You see both parties have lost the confidence of the rank and file. And we’re not going back to what once was. A return to normal Biden proffers? Well, normal wasn’t that good for most people to begin with!

As for gradual change, trusting the system, it didn’t benefit the African-Americans.

We are only going forward.

Change always comes from outside, insiders don’t want it, we saw this with Shawn Fanning and Napster. Insiders can’t see the future.

And the new leaders follow at best, the labels are no longer in control of recording. If nothing else, everybody can record at home essentially for free on their computer and promote themselves on the internet/social media. As for the labels, they don’t develop, they just skim the cream and promote as they continue to lose market share.

Adapt or die.

Hell, we’re dying on the street, and we’re sick and tired of it!