Into America

By the late 90s, rap was the world’s pop music. The money was flowing, creating hip-hop moguls and welcoming in the Bling Era. 

But as hip-hop went mainstream and gained commercial success, the rap music topping the charts had begun to largely shed its political messaging in favor of music that was mostly about the trappings of success: sex, partying, and money. That is, until pressure mounted and backlash to a Republican government brought politics back to hip-hop once more, leading to the mobilization of a generation and the first hip-hop president: Barack Obama.

Trymaine Lee is joined by: rapper Master P, stic of the hip-hop duo Dead Prez, rapper & activist Tef Poe, Vote or Die’s Alexis McGill Johnson, political organizer Rosa Clemente, and writer Joan Morgan. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Street Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere
• Street Disciples: America’s Most Wanted

As hip-hop found its rhythm in the late 80s and early 90s, artists had to grapple with the scars of violence the drug war was causing within the community, using music videos like “Self Destruction” to hold each other accountable, and trying not to unravel in the face of what was happening in the streets. 

This is also when hip-hop began to expand outside of New York, to Los Angeles, where California’s own policies and structures were shaping the rise of gangsta rap. 

These movements culminated in the so-called “golden age” of hip-hop, a time of maturing and sophistication in the music.  But along with that maturity came uncertainty from national leaders, and a new wave of commercialization that threatened to unravel this political artform.

On this episode of “Street Disciples,” Trymaine Lee hears from: Daddy-O from the hip-hop group Stetsasonic, rapper and producer The D.O.C., Video Music Box’s Ralph McDaniels, radio host Bobbito Garcia, writer Nelson George, and journalist Davey D.

Note: this episode contains several instances of profanity. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Street Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere

By the 1980s, hip-hop artists were beginning to expand the party culture of hip-hop's early years and think about what they wanted to say with their music. 

Faced with a city wrecked by economic abandonment and neglect, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message” in 1982, calling out the conditions head-on: “rats in the front room, roaches in the back, junkies in the alley with a baseball bat.” 

And to take control of this environment of neglect, young artists began shaping their environment through dance, fashion, and graffiti. But with the growth in the culture came a crackdown on Black America: in the form of “broken windows” policing, and then a ramped up War on Drugs.And as some members of the hip-hop counterculture became targets of police harassment, they began to fight the power with work that was bold and demanding..

In the second episode of “Street Disciples,” Trymaine Lee hears from: Melle Mel of the Furious Five, fashion designer Dapper Dan, graffiti artist Cey Adams, sociologist Tricia Rose, historian Mark Anthony Neal, and hip-hop activist Harry Allen. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Street Disciples, part one: The Concrete Jungle
• Check out the Into America playlist on Spotify

Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.

Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, for Black History Month, Into America is presenting “Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.” Trymaine Lee is looking back on the political conditions and policies that have inspired half a century of hip-hop, and how over time, hip-hop began to shape America. 

On part one of “Street Disciples,” how the concrete jungle of New York in the 1970s led to the birth and spread of hip-hop. Trymaine is joined by: Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Grandwizzard Theodore, historian Mark Anthony Neal, sociologist Tricia Rose, and journalist Davey D.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Check out our previous Black History series here: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence

Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.

Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, for Black History Month, Into America is presenting “Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.” Trymaine Lee is looking back on the political conditions and policies that have inspired half a century of hip-hop, and how over time, hip-hop began to shape America. 

On part one of “Street Disciples,” how the concrete jungle of New York in the 1970s led to the birth and spread of hip-hop. Trymaine is joined by: Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Grandwizzard Theodore, historian Mark Anthony Neal, sociologist Tricia Rose, and journalist Davey D.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Check out our previous Black History series here: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence

Into America with Trymaine Lee is nominated for two NAACP Image Awards! And we need your vote to win. 

To vote, click HERE. (Or type in your browser: vote.naacpimageawards.net)

Scroll to the bottom to find the podcast section. Then select Into America for both “Outstanding News & Information Podcast,” as well as “Outstanding Society & Culture Podcast.”

Once you're done, hit “cast your vote.” 

And remember to spread the word! Once you’ve voted, share the news with your circles. You can tag the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Voting closes on Friday, February, 10th. 

Thanks for supporting Into America!

Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was never supposed to end up in an exhibit on Reconstruction at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. But then the 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, while carrying nothing but a cell phone, a pack of Skittles, and a can of iced tea. 

Kidada Williams, a history professor at Wayne State University tells Trymaine Lee that she sees a clear through line between Reconstruction and Trayvon Martin. “The way he was targeted for minding his own business, the way he was demonized, and in some cases blamed for his own [death] is very consistent with what happened during Reconstruction,” she explains.

Like Emmett Till before him, Trayvon’s story galvanized a people and changed a nation. Protests sprang up across the country as the story gained traction, helped in large part by Trymaine Lee’s reporting. A generation of young people became activists, and the phrase “Black Lives Matter” became a rallying cry.

But when Trayvon became a face of the movement, it came with a cost — born largely by those closest to Trayvon, like his dad, Tracy Martin. "I’m giving to society, but do society really understand what I've given up?” he asks. "We don't look to bury our kids. We don't look to eulogize them or try to define what their legacy is to be. And during that process, man, it just, it really tears you up.” 

(Original release date: February 24, 2022)

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For More: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• Reconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby

Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was never supposed to end up in an exhibit on Reconstruction at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. But then the 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, while carrying nothing but a cell phone, a pack of Skittles, and a can of iced tea. 

Kidada Williams, a history professor at Wayne State University tells Trymaine Lee that she sees a clear through line between Reconstruction and Trayvon Martin. “The way he was targeted for minding his own business, the way he was demonized, and in some cases blamed for his own [death] is very consistent with what happened during Reconstruction,” she explains.

Like Emmett Till before him, Trayvon’s story galvanized a people and changed a nation. Protests sprang up across the country as the story gained traction, helped in large part by Trymaine Lee’s reporting. A generation of young people became activists, and the phrase “Black Lives Matter” became a rallying cry.

But when Trayvon became a face of the movement, it came with a cost — born largely by those closest to Trayvon, like his dad, Tracy Martin. "I’m giving to society, but do society really understand what I've given up?” he asks. "We don't look to bury our kids. We don't look to eulogize them or try to define what their legacy is to be. And during that process, man, it just, it really tears you up.” 

(Original release date: February 24, 2022)

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For More: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• Reconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby

On June 17, 2015, a white extremist shot and killed nine Black people in the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina as they gathered for a bible study group. 

This wasn’t the first time Mother Emanuel had been attacked. In the 1820s, white people burned down Mother Emanuel in retaliation over a failed slave rebellion. For years, the congregation was forced to meet in secret. But through all the violence and backlash, the Black congregants relied on their faith, and during Reconstruction, they rebuilt. 

Mother Emanuel’s history mirrors the story of Black America. Through the centuries, faith has helped Black people find freedom, community, and strength, even in the face of violence.

This tradition of faith in the face of backlash holds true today. Trymaine talks with Bree Newsome Bass, whose incredible protest of scaling a 30-foot pole to take down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol made her an icon of the movement. Bree’s actions led to the permanent removal of the Confederate flag from the state house. And she tells Trymaine that faith was the foundation of it all.

(Original release date: February 17, 2022)

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For more: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• Reconstructed: The Book of Trayvon
   

New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood is one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in America, and at the heart of that wasClaiborne Avenue. In the 1960s, construction of the I-10 highway cut through the community. 

But now, thanks to funding from the recent infrastructure bill, community residents might have the resources to heal. Proposals for the Claiborne Expressway have included everything from tearing down the freeway completely, to taking the federal grant funding and investing it into the community. 

Raynard Sanders a lifelong New Orleanian and the Executive Director of the Claiborne History Project. He says the most important thing is that the community have a say in what happens next. On this bonus episode of Into America, he talks to host Trymaine Lee about the history of the Tremé neighborhood, and the fight to save it.  

This conversation is part of an MSNBC town hall on racial equity and healing, hosted by Trymaine Lee, Joy Reid, and Chris Hayes, and sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.