Transcripts For CSPAN2 Langston 20240706

Thank you for your question. With that, lets give a warm up applause of gratitude to dr. Langston, colin wilkins. Let me pull up my cheat sheet here here. I should know this by now. I do this frequently. So hes currently an assistant professor of folklore and africanamerican studies at the university of wisconsin, madison. Before that, he was in seattle, where he was the director of the Washington Cultural traditions center, Washington Cultural. Its a mess. It is. And before he actually was here in tennessee, where he worked at both the Tennessee Arts Commission and tennessee, so formally in a past life, he was one of these people running the tense, doing other hospitality. But now hes on the other side as a published author himself. And so with that, ill turn it to langston, and hes going to give us an introduction. Hip hop in houston, thank thank you. Yeah, im delighted to be here. Like jennifer just said, maybe five years ago. Yeah, i was running around working on and collaborating with the rest of the staff to produce this here event. Its really weird to be back here as an author, but again, im delighted to. Be here. Yeah. Im an assistant professor of folklore and africaamerican studies at the university of wisconsin, and those two areas kind of informed my first book. Welcome to houston, hip hop, heritage and hustle town. Ill see, you know, im kind of switching into like author mode here i was planning to be the host but you know so, forgive me so book came out in august through university of illinois press. Its an ethnographic look at the houston hip hop scene. Im from houston, texas. So i went back there for about a year and did maybe ten more years of fieldwork down in houston working with hip hop artists. I conducted 30 oral histories with these artists, attended numerous shows, did a lot of archival work, produce this book. Essentially, it focuses on the role of place, the development and maintenance of heritage, a hip hop heritage in houston, texas. So i use all ethnographic information and fieldwork to kind of take a look at how this local heritage was the product of African Americans intimate vine or connection with place in their environment. So just a little bit about the philosophy kind of underpinning the book and why decided to do it. You know, it was the general feeling that the way we talk about hip hop culture does not always reflect a true nature of the culture. These common definitions are a bit limiting at times, so when we talk about hip hop. We often talk about it as multibillion dollar global industry, right . So its currently the most popular genre in the country, musical genre in the country. In fact, hip hop now is responsible for 25 of all music consumption in this country. So its a big dominant music genre. Thats true. We also focus on its new york roots and this traditional of hip hop, which is a culture consisting of four elements. You have the emceeing deejaying, the bowling or breakdancing and the graffiti. And thats also true for the but both of these understandings are relevant and. True, but at the same time, hip hop culture looks differently across space right. And so each locale in this country and around the world, their own hip hop culture and tradition is based on the experiences and kind of worldview and experiences of people in those cities. Houston, texas where im from, yeah, has a very unique hip hop heritage, is comprised of 2 to 3 core practices. You have the music called screwed which is this very slow muddy kind of atmospheric hip hop sound you have slabs, which is a kind of a local car culture that emerged in the streets of houston, texas in the 1980s. And depending on you, on who you talk to, theres also a illicit drug called mean, which i dont i dont necessarily consider that firmly a part of the heritage. But some people do. Right. And so this kind of mix of practices creates this again, this very unique hip hop heritage in, houston. And thats kind of what i explored through the book. My main point, though, is that even as the National Hip Hop industry kind of grows and changes at a very rapid rate, houstons hip hop heritage continues to persist largely of this intense pride of place, that central to the lives of black people in especially working class black folks in houston and these neighborhoods that produce hip hop culture so lacking Financial Resources and cultural capital, these working class black houstonians and i count myself one of those people. I grew up in those neighborhoods and thats you know, thats what made me we draw Identity Protection and inspiration from our streets where we grew up, our neighborhoods apartment buildings and even the city itself. Right. And so these spaces and places seen as sort of inheritance, right. It becomes part of our identity. And in the book, i show how this identification with place and this pride of place has led to development of each particular of houstons hip hop heritage and also this deep connection to the city of houston and at least our version of it. Thats cause local artists and audiences to maintain this local hop heritage. But heritage is complicated. So, yes, houston has this local and longstanding hip hop heritage, but heritage is not or universal for some people. It can be. It can empower and affirm, but for others, it could be incredibly and even harmful. And so i explore the complexities of heritage through three different artists, artistic communities. Each of these communities are these subgroups have their own particular connection to local hip hop heritage, and they use it in different ways. And it produces different outcomes for them. So i talked to based artist and theyre the ones who actively kind of maintain connection to this local heritage. They feel like. Its their duty as artists to support the local heritage so that music still very much rooted in through music. They actually talk about slabs and all that and because local are deeply connected this heritage these street artists are among the most successful artists in the city but you have selfproclaimed underground whose styles move quite a bit away from the through tradition and their they have wide influence is and theyre driven mostly by their own artistic impulses and so they dont really feel obligated to maintain this heritage but at the same time they strategically use it in order to appease local audiences, but nevertheless, because they dont actively adhere to legacy, they kind of struggle for relevance, relevancy in the same now. And i also talk to christian artists or holy hip hoppers in the city who use hip hop heritage kind of as a tool in ministry, of course, elements of local heritage could conflict the christian i think thats pretty clear. But you see them reference this sound and slabs and all that in order to connect with and minister, minister to locals. So houston hip hop is also a tool of ministry for these folks. So yeah, basically you what im trying to say with the book is that hip hop is a folk culture is not often understood as such, but its very much a folk music folk with a small, if not the genre. But it is certainly music that at its core is developed by small place bound communities or folk groups and reflects their way of life, their social values and even their traditions and, hip hop culture creatively communicates the experiences, attitudes and the worldview of working class africanamericans and land. Next, folks, its entertainment, but it also ideas and information within these communities. So even the most popular and dominant hop styles have a folk foundation. The art market started as small group, and some of them became traditions. And so thats the book. And nutshell. And yeah, im to chat further about hip hop or whatever. So when does your study begin . Give us idea of the time to time. Yeah, it begins around 11. Thats when i went to do the field work in houston. I was at university, moved back literally into my parents house and stayed for a year or so doing deep research and then yeah, again, on and off for about ten years. But it starts around 2011. Yeah. Okay. And you, you talked about the you interviewed people who had been involved from the very beginning and then you interviewed who were kind of seen founders of this field and then you sort of talked to the people who were popular at the moment. And then you talked to the group of emerging artists. And so how far back in time do they go, the founders of houston hip hop. Oh yeah yeah they go way to the mid eighties some of these folks were making hip hop as early as 1982. So after the genre first developed in new york and spread across the so yeah now theyre long time hip hop folks they really i to folks who really helped build the foundation this scene in the city which are describe for the neighborhoods oh. Thats a great question yeah no you know these neighborhoods are often unfairly labeled as bad and and rough but you know, that was in my right. Theres so much more that and beyond that i mean their communities are mostly situated, you know in the north side and south side of the city of long standing residential segregation and racism right there tight knit. Right. And so if you grew up in the northern or the southern part, thats kind of your social world, right . You dont really like go back forth. You dont move out of it. You could move out of it. But like youre youre its part of your identity. But, you know, theres to any other neighborhood, theyre tight knit people socialize together. You they grew up together and again, i think they see the neighborhood as part of their heritage inheritance. So its something that you actively and represent even as you go further in life and move away from it. Its still part of my identity. And so, yeah, theyre just kind of rich, beautiful neighborhoods full of vibrant cultural practices. And one of those is hip hop culture. So talk a little bit about the production of the sound and how its to houston. Oh yeah, yeah. So its just screwed and chopped sound, which is dominant sound in the national hop atlanta interNational Hip Hop landscape nowadays. But it started in houston in the late 1980s. Its super, super slow, right . Most hip hop culture historically has been uptempo, you know, midtempo, uptempo. You know. But houston, we do it slow. And theres many reasons for that, mostly because its hot. Were just tired all the time, but its slow music. Its kind of muddy. Its bass heavy. Its meant to be played through in these powerful car stereo speakers. The lyrics are rooted kind of like deeply local experience. So youre like, not from there. You might not understand what everybodys talking about, but i know its great music, and it started in 1980s with this guy named dj screw, who just kind of on his own develop this sound that kind of took over the world. But, you know, its great when you hear its just super slow, choppy, muddy muddy music, but it started in houston. Yeah. How did actually do it . Oh, yeah. First, when he started it. He was doing it. I think he was using tapes too. And it just kind of slowed these tapes down. But eventually he could use the pitch control knob of his turntable to slow the records but then eventually his final setup was recording everything in real time and in normal speed and slowing it down when he would reproduce the tapes. Now, though using latest technology, you can make that super slow music just using your computer. Yeah. So is it only something that is produced in the Recording Studio or is it live . Also, you can do it live. No, you can. You can do it live again using. All sorts of latest mechanical or musical instruments. But its mostly i think a studio produced sound kind of hard to recreate that particular slow and atmospheric sound live and stage. So its mostly a studio based thing so as interested in introduction, you say it averages around 60 beats per minute. Yeah thats the average human heart rate. Oh, thats interesting. Yeah, there could be some connection there. No. Yeah, i will say know there theres i kind of over the drug connection because i dont like to like highlight that so much, but it is part of at least the history of the culture, the individual lives who were establishing the sound. They drank coffee, sirup and would slow them down. And this music kind of arose within that experience of being slow having your whole kind of faculties slowed down. This music was kind of the musical accompaniment for, that experience. So its certainly connected to the body. Yeah, ill give you that. And for those of you, i didnt know the term lean. I think here in we call it purple drank. Well what i call the houston. Yeah now it has a bunch of different names we were talking about this but yeah yeah yeah it israel though. Its real, right . Yeah. I mean in purple now, but anyway. Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about the role of local production and local record shops. Oh yeah, yeah. No, i love to talk about that. Yeah. You know, this is for a long time and still to this day, its super local like, you know, houston is such a weird industry. Your scene because you could be super successful and get kind of rich as an artist while never leaving the city because the hip hop culture is so vibrant and so big and most of it historically and to this day is produced through local and put out through local independent record labels. So its hyper local music to this day. Yeah, no, no. The record in the record shops. Yeah, its mostly sold within the city. It feels like in houston, it feels like everybody in houston. Right. Its not true, but it like that is so ubiquitous and but its kind of supported by this strong infrastructure for hip hop thats been developed over the and the labels and the studios. The record shops play a big part of that. How has streaming affected that . Oh, yeah, yeah. I think its affected the money that an artist can get. I mean, thats really true because they went from selling out physical stores. Right, and getting quite a bit of money to putting their own records to everything being streamed. And they get like less than a cent off individual stream. So it impacted their ability to maintain lives and careers off it. But its also kind of grown the scope, reach of the culture. Now i think theyre reaching countries in areas that they never would have reached before. And youre hearing people all over the world, houston, identify through music, like theyre referencing like stuff in houston, even though they never set foot there. And i think streaming had a lot to do with that for sure. So you write a little bit about your own role as kind of an insider, which is, yeah, the constant dilemma, the folklorist or ethnomusicologist. Sure. How did you negotiate those interactions . It wasnt, yeah. That was part of the hes doing the work because i actively tried to maintain this sort of outsider perspective because thats what i was taught in school, you know, at the time it was, hey, youre supposed to be this objective kind of researcher, or no matter how intimate or intimately connected you are with the folks. Right. In order to produce good scholarship. Right. You had this kind of, you know, be distant from it. But i was, you know, down there and moving in through spaces that im like where i lived and grew up, right . And meeting people who like, you know, knew these environments i grew up in, you know. I kind of dropped a lot of that in. I think it helped really help me kind of build bonds. I wouldnt have otherwise been able to and i really think i got information and got access that i otherwise couldnt have gotten, you know, and at the same time to just kind of talking to these folks and saying, hey, look, you know, im here kind of preparing my ph. D. , but im the same guy from these neighborhoods. I think they kind of took pride in that. And they were willing to, again, give me a lot more and information than i would otherwise get. So, yeah, kind of during their research. I feel like i stepped into sort of an insider role. But when i wrote book, i kind of stepped away from it in order to get it published and get it through peer review. So yeah, thats interesting that you say that you were taught that in school because we went to the same school and my experience a little bit before you as a little bit different where we were taught pretty much what you were just saying to take advantage of the fact youre an insider that a folklorist an anthropologist looking at their own culture and trying to bring those tools in. What youre really is the methodology is what making you different than somebody whos participating in the culture. Yeah, yeah. And let me say it was like one or two professors that emphasized i need to step away. So but they were like super important to my work but yeah and i think to kind of before our era you know it was there was this push to be you know for anthropology and folklorist be these objective distant observers but. I think in the last 20 years or so that thats changed. You know, we have been pushed to like use our connections and our intimacy to, you know, do better work. So, yeah, thats very true. Yeah and i would agree that before my time or yeah, the time of my professors were taught that you have to be objective, but then you cant, you know, theres no such thing as being when youre participating in the itself. Right. And, you know, i think different when some of these professors, you know were absolutely like stepping in a world that they werent from. And it was hard for them to get that of status for me. Im going literally back to my moms house. And so now how can i ever feign theyre like, thats my culture these are my folks. And so anyway, yeah, yeah. Well, im just just kind of a little the career path of many people turn out to be folklorist is a lot of time. Start off with your own culture and then with each successive project, you move a little bit further away from that until all of a youre in turkey looking at ceramics or something. Yeah. And thats where langston will be next. Lets now look out for that book in 15 years. Yeah, i want to ask you about the material culture, okay . Yes. And with this so tell us about cars. Oh, yeah. I can tell you a lot about the cars. Yeah. No, the cars are you know, if im known for anything and im not known, but if im not for anything, its studying this car culture and so yeah. Houston the houston hip hop scene has this kind car culture called slab that developed in houston street culture in the mid 1980s there essentially these older models, large size american sedans, were talking like cadillacs, lincolns, oldsmobiles and things like buick, things like that, that painted in these like explosive candy, like colors and they feature all kinds, other body modifications and they sit out by sedan or theyre the rims these cone like chariot like rims called swinger the elbows is actually pictured on the back cover. Yeah. Kind of emerge as their own culture in the mid 1980s, but as the screw sound kind of emerged, the slab kind of was a primary vehicle through which that music was promoted and produced and so they kind of became interconnect did in the early 1990s and now theyre kind of inextricably tied together. You cant really talk about screw music, just love music without talking about slab. And so when i went to do the field work, i wasnt really about the cars, but as i was going through and going to events and talking to folks, i realized that the cars were very much part of the story. So yeah, produced a whole chapter on it. The last chapter actually talks about how as a public folklorist, i produced big event for arts lab culture kind of helped for better or for worse, mainstream. The culture within houstons general cultural fabric and yeah, now you see slabs everywhere. The mayors of houston wrote slabs and different parades when the won the world series last, there was a big graphic that showed the various players riding in slab and so yeah no im hope but yeah i mean well i cant tell. Yeah i yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. No, i. Good. Were going to act like that didnt happen. No, but yeah. No, no. Slab culture kind of the visual and material culture element of houston hip hop culture. Id say, wheres the word slab come from. Well that well, you know, thats rooted in oral history, which is not something thats not infallible. Right. Some people say that it from the fact that when you put all these different on the car and all different batteries in the trunk to propel produce to the bass heavy sound kind of weighs the car down closer to the slabs of the concrete of the street other people say that back in the day and it would take like a year to produce a slab. People would say when they were ready about to hit the slab or a mortar. My car ready for the street. Right. And so those are the two stories that i heard. Slab is also now an acronym for flow, loud and bangin, which i think reflects the car culture and music culture as well. So in your last chapter you talk about christian hip hop . Yeah, yeah. So give us some insight into that world. Yeah, yeah. And again, similar to the slab, i did not into houston thinking i was steady. Christian hip hop in houston, but another researcher, kerry allen tipton, who has a wonderful book about sexy fight songs thats available now through vanderbilt press. She was down there working and she said, hey, look, i got a student in my class is part of the christian hip hop scene do you want to meet him . Im like, yeah, all right. You know . And so i talk to him. He let me know that, hey, theres this whole world of christian hip hoppers who are using elements of local hip hop heritage, including this groove sound and referencing slab and stuff in order to appeal to local and just local people. They use it as a tool and in order to, you know, become, i guess, street ministers in some respect they use hip hop heritage to say, hey, look, you know, im like, you had your struggles. Now im, you know, rolling christ and you said to and so yeah and know its interesting because hip hop houston actually has one the early like major holy or christian hop scenes going way back to early 1990s and just i had no clue because i was only listening to it and its really strong to this day so yeah thats a major part of the story thats often underexplored what has been the response of your subjects to the publication of your book . Oh, its been wild. No, i like, you know, i have especially the underground community, you know, i write about several who back ten years ago were pretty active in the but because its kind of hard to maintain careers down there just not as active anymore. But now suddenly you know im seeing them put on shows and the tagging me and, you know, in their fliers on instagram and stuff. So its really revitalize some folks in that scene. But now im getting love from everywhere, you know, when i did the research, it was a piece de dissertation right. And, you know, i had no clue whether this was going to come out as book, you know, back then. And, but although but i told them it away because, you know, i wanted them to feel like i wasnt extracting or taking their stories for my own personal benefit. I wanted them to see themselves out there in a book in the world and ive been able to connect with folks that i work with and they have been delighted, elated that their stories experiences are now in this text for everybody to read. So its been great so you read little bit about the difficulty in gaining access to women rapper. Yes. Yeah. So tell us about that. Yeah. Yeah. You know tin tin 11 years ago, the hip scene in houston looked very different. I mean, now, of course, mega stallion and folks are there. I mean, shes like the most dominant hip hop artist in the country. Right. But ten years ago, these spaces i would into were just very dominated by men and very masculine anyways. And, you know and when i say street culture, it was really street culture, you know, id be out there with folks who, because of the lives they were having to live, you know, it just it street culture. Ill just say that. Yeah. And so there wasnt a lot of i didnt encounter a lot of female artists there and but thats not to say that there werent female contributions to the culture because they were out there being managed or is and producer is and and Club Promoter is and doing all kinds of things is just in terms of like the rapping itself. I dont think the context nor the the men made enough space for them. So it was hard for me to connect with them in that way. So i wish i could continue work, you know, because its a very different game now. And i think the study that i did would be much richer. I had more female comments, commentary there. Yeah. And so this is just sort of a little aside, but one of the issues in the field or what i found is that a lot of times when i went out with a male colleague, we could kind of divide and conquer and get to more information that you mentioned, giving you a talk about it. Yeah, a student. So yeah when you go back, if you do youve already got this is your credibility that may open me even more doors for you. Yeah, i hope so. I so. And, you know, i was able to interview a couple of female artists then, but even then, you know, they were like, hey, i was doing 99 of my interviews person, right. But they because for very fair reasons only want do it over the phone and i told the it was for their safety and i got yeah so the dynamics were different. But now with zoom and everything, its just totally different game and you know who knows about continuing this work but if i do, i look forward to having just a wider diversity of input here. So what are you working on now . Oh yeah yeah. So a few things. Im working on a book and again, i dont know when is it going to come out . When i finish it on a new york. Well, the folklore of york street culture. So im looking. The new york underground street culture of the eighties nineties crack era and looking at the folklore that emerges out of that and it continues to be dominant in various spaces, especially digitally. So thats one book. And also working with a good friend of mine and colleague named lavonne williams, who to be the curator, the stax museum, and also National Museum of African American music. Were collaborating in a book about the independent Hip Hop Movement of the late nineties and early 2000. So those are the two things we got burning out there. So and maybe something to come up. Yeah. So talk a little bit about the experience of taking a dissertation and turning it into a book for popular. You have a hard yeah yeah. So now the dissertation was very much a doctoral dissertation it was full of theory and language edge and all this stuff that wouldnt mean anything to most people and sometimes didnt mean anything to me. And so, you know, i had this rough text and, you know, i just had a took several years to work on it and. So i got rid of all of that. The literature review and now theres the that just wouldnt mean anything to anybody and really focused on telling stories and really breaking down, you know what i was trying to convey and a really, really that everybody can including the folks that i work with right now is super i really them to see themselves in the text understand what i was trying to say you know and so much of that work was just getting rid of the academic language and turning it into something that was, you know, could be publicly consumed and and had great editors at the university of illinois and also friends who i bounce ideas off of. And, you know, my wife whos also ethnomusicologist like me i mean she as well so took time but i turned it into something that people could actually read. Know you should read it if you have time for the projects youre working on now, you dont have to have all that know. No, no. I got a job so i dont know its going to be a little Academic Year you know, because. Well you want that rigor. Yeah. And itll probably one of them at least ill go through an academic process i think by now that ive proven that im a dissertation or doctoral worthy right and ill have to include all that stuff. So therell be another book that you all can read and understand. Yeah. Okay. Well open it up to questions the audience now. So if you have a question and if youll come over here to this microphone, please ask questions because we still got good 15 minutes or so before we have to leave. Our question. So hi, dr. Wilkins. I, i, ive been struggling for how to formulate this, but my understanding that a lot of people from new orleans moved to houston after hurricane and as new orleans is, place of the very hyper local hop scene, i wondered if youve noticed whether the new orleans hip hop has had any influence on houston hip hop culture in the last like 15 years plus. Thats a question i will say. Yes and no, no, in the sense that because houston and new orleans are so geographically close to each other, new orleans hip hop is always influence. Houston hip hop, i mean, growing up in the city, if you turn on the local hip hop station and at least half were on a fourth of what you would hear, it would be from new orleans. So that was always there. But yeah, the mass new orleans folks moving houston around 2005, i think it radically changed houston hip hop landscape i think is a didnt really change the tempos because thats like traditionally houston but i think it changed in the language in some of the the flavor of the music and a lot of the even current popular artists in houston were born in new orleans and came over during katrina. So its changed it. But you know that connection, that new new orleans to louisiana texas eclectic connection was always there but now. Yeah, great great question. Thank you. At the beginning of your talk, you mentioned for emcee and deejay that the graffiti and theres one ill be honest with you i did not understand or that that fourth term what you was the people in beat maybe that was it yeah yeah. No yeah so so be boring is whats popularly known as breakdancing. But originally in the culture it was called bboy because the original dancers were called just break boys. So they would dance to this part of the record called the break, this highly instrumental of the records that are called break boys. Yeah, you go, yeah, yeah. Good. I was born in and had to learn how to just what. Yeah i just wasnt familiar with that exact ah yeah. No, yeah, yeah. B boying yeah. Deejaying and singing and graffiti. Thank, thank you, thank you. So youre going to go. I could be totally wrong about this, but it seems like im an older guy and it seems like in the late eighties united there was reverend dmc and remembering right was from houston, was from dallas now. Yeah yeah. So we got it. Yeah. Very different. Are are there there is everyone from the houston thing to who made it into major work at hip hop or do you see influences from houston on anyone. Not from houston. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. So i think in terms like the houston impact and national, if you go back like in 19 1991, you had the geto boys who had in mind playing tricks, which was a top hip hop and pop record at the time. Fast forward. 15 years, mid 2000, you had people like paul ball and slim thug and mike jones who really brought screwed music to the International Landscape through their music. And now again yeah mega stallion from houston from south side where im from is one or the number one or two top hip hop artists in this country. But in terms of the sound, i mean, i think, you know, if you listen to hip hop in general nowadays, youre hearing a major houston people dont want to admit it, but its their right. If you listen to the tempo of a lot of rap music nowadays its slow we were doing that you know that thats that houston im sorry im talking now, but and then theres this thing, you know, called slow and reverb, right . And, you know, thats a direct connection to this group talks sound so yeah yeah its out there were making waves id say hey hey do you see the Younger Generation in houston having the same reverence for the culture that the old guys did . Lack of a better word . Oh, guys. I guess. Yeah, yeah, i think its different. I think its different. Think we talked about the internet, you know, how its kind of opened doors that and kind of breaking down barriers were used to be there when things when these scenes were really rooted in place. I think theres less reverence and less connection to that heritage. Is still there, still strong. But you know how people fix that and not work with young people and and well, i teach high school. Yeah. They they think, they know that theyre paying reverence, but theyre really not. Yeah and and we need we need someone to teach them. The history and the culture. Well, the book is here. Yeah, i got it. I got it. No, no, i just. Im okay. Im on it. Let me say, too, you know, this is this is my book. But there is at least in houston, theres tons of folks kinds of Cultural Workers who are doing things like museum, who are creating curriculum dedicated to houston hip hop, who are writing other books. Theres a deejay through biography that came out last year. Thats amazing. Someones producing houston hip hop museum, right . And so i think all of these and then of course, you have these Public Events like festivals, stuff. So i think all of these are ways educators and just kind of, you know, the government, all these folks, right, get together and support hip hop by producing institutions, using, if not, you know, federal public dollars, but like just destroy the infrastructure support behind these institutions and publications events. I think thats a good way of doing, too. Celebrating local heritage in that way. Yeah. Do you have any other questions from the audience. While langston takes his drink . Ill take opportunity to push our clever. Yeah. Yeah. You want to talk about or you want me to. You can start. Yeah. Okay so the Tulsa Historical Society during the early days of covid decided to take all of our programing, and langston with dr. Shaun pitts, our coconvener of our series called. 1. 1 the history of tennessee music. When i approached them with this idea, said, i want our very first session to be about hip hop. I was very insistent upon that and i said, it has to be hip hop because. You know, tennessees thought of as the music state and we live in music city and people always assume its country music, but we have so much more in here in the and so you can go online to our website and see the very first session which langston cole with dj spanish fly out of memphis and its about hip hop and bluff city, right . Oh yeah. The title of it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was that was fun. Like, you know, obviously book is about houston, but my big memphis hip hop fan, im from long ago. And so when i got his opportunity. You know, i was going to do it myself and i present, you know, academic presentation and but, you know, i thought id be a great guy to, opportunity to really talk to someone who was at the foundations of memphis hip hop and that was d. J. Spanish fly, who in the late 1980s established the memphis hip hop, which i think along with houston is one of the dominant influences on hip hop period today. And so, yeah, that was a great session. Just talked about tennessee music boxes, right . Were talking about the chitlin circuit next month. So were all over the place in the best way really celebrating tennessee music. So its a great event thats online. So you should check it. Yeah, all of the sessions are available. We do them live and so you can register through eventbrite. Its all free, but everything that weve already done has been recorded and is available on our website which is tennessee history dork. So check it out because youll get to see langstons brought a lot of people to us that yeah we kind of share the duties and introducing the artists and so what whats one thats really stood out to you is really that we didnt did one on music boxes when we actually did a tour, we had an exhibit we actually started did a little tour. The exhibit, yeah. You know, i just, just thinking about what were talking about today, you know, we did one on hbcu band music, which i thought was pretty. That was right after they won a grammy, too. Yeah, two days later, right . Yeah, right that was cool. How it armstrong. Yeah the Howard Armstrong we had dom flemons and elijah wald and what i liked that one is its a its setting that we call narrative stage where you have both spoken, you know im going to tell you a story but then im also going to play an instrument. And so did a lot of that. Yeah, and its the plug. Cory allen tipton again, i think maybe a few months ago he did one on not fcc fight songs but it was was on Francis Craig yeah francis cracker was a bandleader here in nashville in the mid interwar years. Yeah. So yeah, i mean again, i mean were really celebrating the true diversity of tennessee music and is again, i mean, you know, you must youre from here i mean tennessee has an incredibly rich musical history and thats where we just kind of try to celebrate here and explore. Yeah. So coming up, its going to be the gentleman circuit in the fifties and sixties and the creation of African American tradition here in middle tennessee. So does anybody else have any other questions for us . Is there anything i didnt ask you that you want to add . I know. I mean, i think you, you know, you touched on it all. I mean again, this is ive been working on this about a decade on and off. You know, obviously, i worked as a public folklorist for years. You know, i had to step away from actually on the book. But yeah, this has been my lifes work. I mean, for long time. So im glad its out there in the world. Oh, we have question. Yeah, you youre researching new york. You have hip hop culture. How does it compare with houston . Well, im not referring to hip hop culture. Should have been more clear about, okay, im researching the underground street culture of eighties and a lot of the language, age and material culture and fashion that came out of that. But all of that firmly connects with hip hop culture around the world right now. I mean new york is the epicenter, the foundation, hip hop culture. And so, i mean, if you listen to early houston hop or you listen to any hip hop scene in this country, youre hearing the dominant influence of mid 1980s new york and can you name some of the artists that the names that are coming up . Oh, yeah i mean, well, you can go back from new york. I you can go back to rund. M. C. Or or or here is a particular this a group called the show boys who are from queens, new york. And they made random song called drag rap. I think that or well, thats what we call down here. They made this off this random song that did nothing in york, but somehow it made it down to memphis and down new orleans and the foundations of, both of those scenes right. And so now new york central to the foundations of these scenes obviously though 20, 30 years later theyve gone in different directions. But new york is the epicenter of hip hop so rund. M. C. My husband i were just talking about this this week strangely enough because that was the music of our High School Years i know im giving away our age. I still listen to many emcees. Yes but they were new york central. Yeah. Yep. From queens . Yep. All right. Yeah. So, langston, if people want to follow your research or if they want to hear some this music, where should they go . Oh, yeah, yeah. If they want to follow my research, they can go. They can subscribe to my substack. Uh, which is Langston Wilkins dot substack dot com. Im on twitter too. Street folk like cw, but they want hear some of the music. Oh, there is incredible playlists there. If you google, lance, scott walker wrote this incredible dj script by for a long time, hes also been a scholar of houston hop, and hes put out these incredible playlists i think theyre on spotify or on soundcloud. If you really want to like immerse in their culture, i will look up to. But yeah, you can follow me too. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think with that we will end our session and you join langston in the authors tent to, get his signature on your books and continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank