on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha la la la la sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la geno: right now we re in the middle of downtown jackson. farish street. anthony: it is a street with a lot of history. what did it used to be like back in the day? geno: the street was packed with folks. folks all over, they had their own restaurants, grocery stores, juke joints. i mean everything happened on
a lame campaign i m over here cooking victory you want a taste? anthony: pyinfamous is a proud son and resident of mississippi. a youth mentor in jackson s church and public school systems, owner of a marketing agency, and hip-hop artist. this town, it feels empty. where is everybody? pyinfamous: i think one thing is a lot of people think that you have to leave mississippi to be able to do something great. but i think a lot of it is there s so much bubbling in the undercurrent that sometimes isn t seen. and i think it takes an artist who usually takes something that s blank and creates something that s awesome to be able to see the potential in a place, in a canvas, so to speak, that has been vacated by others. anthony: soul wired cafe. one of a number of places where something is going on. where artists, entrepreneurs move into workshops, perform in spaces, set up something new and good in formerly abandoned and neglected parts of town. yeah you know the name already so
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all we re doing is doing what we do. anthony: there is a discomfort level about exploring southern foodways, or particularly mississippi foodways. when you re talking about high-end, traditional southern cooking, you re talking plantation, slavery cooking, cause that s where these recipes came from. so to revel in that you don t wanna tumble into nostalgia you the potential for awkwardness, uh, and offense, is enormous. john t. edge: right. i wanna be careful. i m not saying that s what i want the south to be. i m saying that s what people come to the south looking for. anthony: right. john t. edge: they come to the south looking for the past preserved in amber. but the reality is something different. i don t wanna fix the past. i don t wanna fix it in 1865, or 1965. i want it to progress and change. i wanna document the change along the way and celebrate that change. the burden of race is upon us and we ain t gonna shake it. and that can make us better.
anthony: some time ago something crawled, or slithered, or grew like a fungus. something that started small, got bigger, lurched like a swamp thing out of the mud and moist earth and humid nights of the delta. then, it took over the world. so next time some smart ass foreigner, horrified by our latest ham-fisted foreign policy blunder wonders out loud, what good is america? well, you can always pipe up that the blues, rock n roll, r&b, and soul all came out of this place one state mississippi. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain