BlackFor30
Liberation is a philosophy that must first exist in our minds before manifesting through our actions.
BlackFor30
Exploring the Legacy of the Five Percent Nation w/Ish Khepri
What if understanding your cultural and historical roots could be the key to overcoming systemic oppression? Join us as we explore this powerful notion with Ish Khepri, a Pan-African activist, who returns to shed light on the profound philosophy of the Five Percent Nation and its founder, Clarence 13X. We journey through the origins of this movement, examining its emphasis on self-knowledge and wisdom as vital tools for personal and collective growth among Black individuals. Ish offers compelling insights into Clarence 13X's transformation from a member of the Nation of Islam to a revolutionary leader who inspired generations through his relatable and empowering message.
As the narrative unfolds, we delve into the philosophical tenets of the Five Percent Nation, often known as the Nation of Gods and Earths. Discover the roles of the 5%, 10%, and 85% within society and how the teachings of Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet guide members toward enlightenment and self-realisation. This episode invites listeners to reflect on the significance of these principles in fostering a deeper understanding of one's identity and their duty to the collective.
With hip-hop as a backdrop, the conversation shifts to the enduring influence of the Five Percent Nation on the music genre and its communities. From the golden age of Hip-Hop to today's challenges, we ponder the evolution of the genre and its shifting themes. Through this lens, we examine the tension between commercialism and meaningful discourse, emphasising the importance of preserving the rich cultural depth and resistance that Hip-Hop originally embodied.
Host:
Fungai Mutsiwa
Guest:
Ish Khepri
BlackFor30 is a place for exploring Pan-African theory and praxis through discourse. Send us your thoughts and questions @blackfor30 or via email at admin@blackfor30.com.
Support BlackFor30
At BlackFor30, we believe that liberation begins in the mind and manifests through action. Your donation helps us amplify Afrocentric perspectives, foster critical conversations, and create initiatives that challenge narratives and inspire change. Together, we can keep the mission alive and impactful. Thank you for being part of this journey.
seeking knowledge and having some form of wisdom and understanding should be considered a rite of passage when you get a certain age, for the African person, for the African child, because without that you're lost. You're a product of your environment, without question, and it's not to say that the Malcolm Xs and the Marcus Garveys and the fun guys and the issues aren't products of their environment. It's just that we're aware that we're a product. I have a dream today. Is it too much to ask you to grant us human dignity? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach? For so many, many years we were told that only white people were beautiful.
Speaker 2:You're afraid that if you give us equal ground, that we will match you and we will override you. Black is beautiful. Greenhood, say I want it. Green Greenhood. Ustakango ni dumbo pawakachero. Which means don't forget who you are or where you came from. Welcome to Black for 30. Thank you for coming through and joining us in another discussion on black for 30 and, of course, before the episode begins, we just need to observe 15 seconds of just being quiet, just so you can wrap up whatever it is you're doing, and then we can fully engross ourselves in this discussion to come. So the 15 seconds starts now.
Speaker 2:So the five percent nation, also known, as you know, nation of gods and arts, is a cultural and philosophical movement which is, like, founded back in the 60s and it teaches that you know 5% of the population which are referred to as poor, righteous teachers you know possess the knowledge to guide others and toward enlightenment and empowerment, with a particular focus on uplifting black communities.
Speaker 2:And the movement's core teachings, like, revolve around the concepts of supreme mathematics and the supreme alphabet, which both offer this framework for your personal growth and collective growth, self-awareness and our responsibility to the collective. Its relevance within the Black community lies in the emphasis on self-knowledge, we'll get into that as well, you know. Empowerment and the rejection of systemic oppression by encouraging individuals to embrace their divine potential and work toward the betterment of the people and to really get into into this. Like I'm really excited, you know, because it's it's a, it's something I've known about for a long time but I have never really created the opportunity to get to know. So this one is exciting for me because I'm curious, coming from a place of ignorance, and to help, I guess, shed a lot of light on this topic. Um, got a really dope guest and I'm going to let him introduce himself. What?
Speaker 1:up Y'all. You guys probably remember me. I was on here before. I can't remember the name of the episode, so forgive me if I got you.
Speaker 2:It was about hip-hop, though it was, it was no.
Speaker 1:I'm Emil Kepri, a Pan-African socialist, a screenwriter, activist. Happy to be back.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Thank you for making the time to share more wisdom. That is definitely needed, you know, and I think to start our conversation, like you know, kind of just welcoming people into the nation, I'll give a little bit of context. I'll then pass it on to you to really get into. You know, at least like the origins of it. You know. So the founder, clarence 13X, you know he reminds me of the revolutionary Amilcar Cabral, you know how. And they're from very different contexts, right. But Amilcar, you know he. And they're from very different contexts, right. But Emilco, you know he was focused deeply on the people, you know, not only the intellectuals or the enlightened, but also those in grassroots, and Cabral had this knack of being able to mobilize the masses you know, because he was able to understand their unique struggles and speak to them in a way that they could relate.
Speaker 2:And likewise clarence 13x for me. I feel he understood the assignment. You know the need to bring the teachings of the nation to those unaware of how the system was perpetually, you know, dehumanizing them or the ways in which to protect their mind. You know, from the, from being manipulated. You know, and becoming perpetrators of their own demise. You know, and he then took that to the streets of Harlem. You know, for a lot of people he became their father figure. You know a lot of kids will come. A lot of youths were coming from broken homes. So who was clarence 13x? And you know what were his reasons, you know, behind splitting from the nation of islam. And you know how did he then become motivated to establish the five percent nation?
Speaker 1:yeah. So Clarence 13 next, uh, or father Allah is what the nations of the gods and the earths call him was, uh, he, he came from the south. Uh, part of the northern migration was born in in um in the 30s. Uh, it was two northern migrations, he, he was obviously in the first one, um, and it was a tradition of constantly questioning, um the authenticity or lack thereof of of what america had called life for us in in the belly of the beast in america. So you know, I'm sure at that time he had come into cross paths with, with, like the Black Star Alliance and Marcus Garvey being in New York at that time, right as a child, I'm sure he had come in contact with the black Muslims, which predate the 5 percent nation, and the gods of the earth which predate the 5% nation and the gods and the earths. And so you know, I guess, when he became of age and settled down in Harlem, new York in the 60s, malcolm X was ascending, he was on his rise, and so he ended up joining Temple no 7 in Harlem, new York in the 60s and became Clarence 13X, meaning it was 13 other brothers in that temple named Clarence and he was the 13th. X just means like the last name was unknown, because the X denotes the unknown, because whatever our last names are, as diastrons in the West, as names are, as diasporans in the West, maybe even abroad is really a legacy of being, of the African Holocaust or the Ma'afa. You know, and so you know, when you take your oath as a Muslim in the Nation of Islam or most cultures, as a diaspora, you lose your name and you adopt a more, uh, african, uh or spiritual name that's more aligned with your culture. So he left that last name and became Clarence 13.
Speaker 1:Next, he was mad gifted as a speaker. He was mad gifted. He had, you know, he, he knew how to talk and and he, more importantly, he knew how to consume information, which, at the time being in a nation of Islam, being a student under Malcolm. So you can only imagine, like, if Malcolm X is the main minister of Temple no 7, you've got to be sharp under him, because Malcolm was sharp, malcolm was sharp, malcolm was sharp, he was sharp, and so he was really good at teaching the 120 lessons or the Supreme Mathematics of the Honorable Aja Muhammad, the Nation of Islam, of course, which is where he was, which was very orthodox, unorthodox as far as Muslims is concerned. Orthodox, unorthodox as far as Muslims is concerned, traditional Islam considered by Muslims the world over, but that's a whole nother conversation we could dive into as far as why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad presented suits and they were clean shaven and wore bow ties.
Speaker 1:But nonetheless, that straight laced culture was a struggle for Clarence 13x on some levels, right, because he was like why I gotta dress like this? The people ain't go. The people I'm trying to reach, they don't dress like this. We gotta be upright. But you know, at the same time, if I um separate myself too much and exalt myself too much from the people I'm trying to save, they won't relate to me, right. And so he struggled with that a little bit, meaning his sobriety towards alcohol and cigarettes was a bit of a struggle. So he sometimes he would be caught or seen sipping from whiskey and smoking cigarettes. But something was happening on the street with the younger generation who heard such a profound speaker that was so captivating and saying things that was so antithetical to what we were taught we were via identity. They were still like he. He smoked, you know, cigarettes. Like me he's sipping on that whiskey, but he ain't talking like me, maybe I can be as as sharp as him and arm myself mentally. So that started to bubble a little bit anyway.
Speaker 1:Uh, we fast forward and he started questioning something that was almost like unquestionable, it was, was sacrosanct and it was. It's at the heart of the Nation, of Islam's dogma, and that's what WD Fard Muhammad and WD Fard Muhammad is supposed to be a lot in the flesh who came in, raised and awoken or awakened. Honorable Elijah Muhammad at the time was called Elijah Poole. He met him in prison and he was supposed to be Allah, like the Allah who came in that form uses and I guess validating why it made sense for Allah to be in the form of someone who was not black was because in the 1930s and 40s black people wouldn't have accepted a black savior. So they're saying well, he still came and he raised the prophet in the honorable Elijah Muhammad to come and raise a nation, you know, for the black people around the globe.
Speaker 1:Clarence 13 next, struggle with that. I could say what he struggled with it. He was like how are we walking around talking about how great we are as black people? And we got a picture of wd fard who honor our leader, and honorable elijah muhammad is saying this is a lot. How is this different right from my grandmother's living room in 1950, 60, who got a white Jesus on the wall right, like we're still? We're just trading one with long hair and a toga on for someone that's white, with a partner here with a nice three-piece suit on. So he questioned it and so he expressed his contempt about the notion that this was a lie to other brothers around the temple and where it started to travel fast, that he was questioning something and Malcolm X confronted him about it. It was like, hey, man, either you're with us in so many words, I'm paraphrasing either you're a member of this nation or you're not. And you're a minister and you got promoted to lieutenant by the Prophet, honorable Elijah Muhammad, because of how well you recruit people and how fiery of a speaker you are. So either you're with us or you're not. This was before, just before Malcolmcolm x split the nation.
Speaker 1:Uh, this was around 1960 to 1963, when clarence 13 next was a member of temple number seven in harlem, and so the contempt he had for this notion that I just left. More than likely I'm not sure if he was a Christian, but more than likely he was considering. He was a child of the Northern migration from the South, right. So I imagine in his mind, if I could get in a time machine and sit down and talk to Clarence 13 next, so, father Allah, I'm sure he would say well, yeah, my mama was praying to a white Jesus. Now I'm in by choice, choosing this spiritual organization, only to find at the center of it is a white man who's still my savior, right. So, yeah, he ended up leaving. He got, he got caught talking about it, he got suspended, let me correct that. So malcolm x suspended him and said you can't come back, you're smoking cigarettes and you're bad mouth. And wd far muhammad, which is the one that chose and anointed our messiah and honorable ish muhammad. So he split, he left, um, he, he took the lessons with him.
Speaker 1:You can't unlearn that once you become conscious to something, you can't go back to being conscious, right? It's like, once you're famous, you're famous. You can't be unfamous. You could become infamous, but you can't become unfamous, yeah. So unlearn it, right, so you could do something with the knowledge or it can torment you, right? But that's what knowledge does, even if you're talking about in the quran or in the book of Genesis with Adam. You know, once he had the knowledge he couldn't unsee it. He saw Eve as naked he, he understood he was, he was a man and he became sexually right, right. So that's, that's the dogma of that.
Speaker 1:But in the story of Clarence 13 X, he took the information and he formed an organization called the 5%, the nation of the gods and the earths, and slowly but surely, some of his students because he was one of the main ministers of temple number seven left because they agreed like this is too hard, wow, what do smoke not, what do not smoking and not drinking got to do with being upright right, exactly. So you didn't have to be, you know, so devout and so extreme. You could be moderate, in a sense, and still have these philosophical views and be aligned with that. So, abu Shahid, another brother named Justice, these were some of the. They formed what was called the Divine Nine, or the first nine of the nations of the gods and earths. It was nine of them that built this nation of the gods and the earths and they took the honorable Elijah's teachings in the supreme lessons and created something called the supreme mathematics, or the 120 degrees, which is the supreme mathematics, the supreme alphabet, a number of different things, student enrollment you know actual facts, all these different things. They just call them degrees because of the numerical value of each, but they began to propagate their philosophical views through the lens of almost, I don't want to say a bastardized version of Islam that the nation of Islam had founded, but I would say a much more nuanced version of it, you know, and this was much more contemporary and you didn't have to shave and wear a suit and sell bean pies and not drink. You know what I'm saying. And they had a language that was super dynamic.
Speaker 1:And all of this we have to remember, whether we're talking about Marcus Garvey, whether we're talking about the Nation of Islam or the Nations of the Gods and the Earths, and the five percenters or the five percent. All of this is a reaction to imperialism, right, it's a reaction to it. Reaction to imperialism, right, it's a reaction to it. So it may seem over the top when you go back and you read the Supreme Mathematics. Now, the black man is God, the black woman is the moon, the child is the star and the number seven is sacred, and all of these different things. A is Allah, b is born, c is cipher, dipher, d is divine, e is equality, all these different things. It became a language, but it also served a purpose, because it was the same way it's.
Speaker 1:We live in a heavily policed state now, probably more so than back then. It's just that racism functioned with with more transparency back then and because of that, a lot of revolutionary and radicals uh, had to have a very specific language. So instead of saying fuck the police, they would say father, you see, king the police, because nobody, unless you knew the supreme alphabet, you wouldn't know what that was. Yeah, yeah, right, so so on and so on. So that's, I don't want to. I could keep going on, but and so on, so that's.
Speaker 2:I don't want to.
Speaker 1:I could keep going on, but Are we going to get into that for sure, yeah. So that's just giving you a gist of this, and it's really truly one of the first nuanced radical movements in America. That was not so. It was. It was. It was not so so staunch and orthodox, it was nuanced, it was contemporary and it made room for people who maybe didn't want to stop drinking, maybe they didn't want to stop smoking, but they wanted to be, uh, part of something that was revolutionary, and I think that's important to to highlight for sure, for sure, man like, and even though I don't practice or nor was I involved in, you know, the five percent nation either.
Speaker 2:But what I do appreciate about the Nation 5% Nation is that it steered away from religion and it was more about spiritual philosophy. Because, especially when you consider today's context, the dangers of groupthink in a particular group of individuals thinking that only they understand the black problem or the black condition, because that is very false, because there's so many nuances, you know whether we want to look at it geographically speaking, or whether we want to look at it, you know, based on um tribe, whether we want to look at it, you know, based on gender. You know. So the the problem presents itself differently, right? So therefore there can't be a dogmatic approach about, you know, so the problem presents itself differently, right? So therefore there can't be a dogmatic approach about, you know, trying to address the Black condition.
Speaker 2:So I think for me that's one of the things, like you know, reading up on the 5% Nation, that was just sort of stuck out for me. You'd mentioned some of the terms and I guess, for context, again, you mentioned, you know, nation of Gods and Earths. For context, again, you mentioned, you know nation of gods and arts, or even, like you know, five percent, and they resemble philosophical views of you know, identity. So could you explain a bit more about you know what they stand for?
Speaker 1:yeah. So the the breakdown of um, the honorable Elijah Muhammad, because this, this is where it comes from. Even though he was exiled or suspended and had fundamental issues with the principles that was being taught, he still valued a lot of it and this was. This speaks a lot to his character and to his gravity as a leader. I think Clarence 13 Next, to question the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and what at the time was probably the peak of the Nation of Islam's membership and he still questioned it Just tells you what a charismatic and forward-thinking person Clarence 13 next was.
Speaker 1:So the way it breaks down is that the 5% nation is the gods and the earths, the poor, righteous teachers here to resurrect mankind and school the deaf, dumb and blind and make them aware of the devil is 10%, which leads me to that. And make them aware of the devil is 10%. Which leads me to that. 10% is the people who have the same knowledge and information and access to that 5% has had, except they're concealing the truth. It's almost like a form of 1984 and the powers that be wanted to keep the information and the knowledge and the opportunity to even be empowered by that information. You can even see that right now, except they flood the people with choices and a lot of information so they can't disseminate the fact from the fiction. So that's what's called the 10% and then the 85%.
Speaker 1:The largest group of this dogma or this philosophical ideology is the deaf, dumb and blind, the people who have been conditioned and propagandized to not see the truth and continue to voluntarily operate under empire and neocolonialism, or slavery as they will put. And so that was the breakdown from the honorable Elijah Muhammad. So in 1964, october 10th, the first nine members of the nations of the gods and the earths considered themselves the nations of gods of earth. The nation of the nations of the gods and the earths, uh, considered themselves the nations of the gods of the earth, the nation of the 5%, because they, they were still considered the poor, righteous teachers. And now that's the breakdown. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I want us to get into the mathematics and the alphabet too. The way I understand it, the supreme mathematics and the supreme alphabet are the core philosophical systems of the 5% nation, and they provide that framework for knowledge of self and the world and also helping them understand their potential. And in supreme mathematics, you've got the numbers zero to nine, and each of them holds a unique philosophical meaning, right, and the numbers serve, as you know, moral, mental and like spiritual disciplines, right, um helping people be able to think symbolically and like find meaning in life. So can you briefly share what each of those numbers represent?
Speaker 1:So it's numerology. It's very radicalized. But when you delve into numerology and the science of numbers as it relates to pre-colonial African spiritual systems, what's interesting is that it still ties back into that, and so I'm not sure if he knew about pre-colonial African studies. I'm going to say yeah, I'm going to say coincidental, and I don't want none of the nations of the gods of the herbs coming at me. I don't want no trouble. So respect. So the number breakdown is number one is knowledge, because you know, without knowledge you don't have anything. Knowledge is the foundation of all things in existence and it's a form of awakening.
Speaker 1:You know, once you get the knowledge, you know you, you start to move different and it changes your behavior, and that's that was very important. In fact, all of the members of the nations of the gods and earths had to have that knowledge. You had to know. They would even step to you with today's mathematics and you had to be able to say what it was and break it down. The second one is wisdom, because obviously, after knowledge, you, you get wise, you develop wisdom and wisdom is the expression of knowledge. Now you're able to express knowledge in ways and actions as opposed, like I said, suppose someone, a police officer, will pull you over and going to behave a certain way, but when you understand and have the knowledge, then now you're wise enough to make different decisions. Which leads me to number three in terms of understanding. So knowledge, wisdom, understanding, all are products of each other, because once you get information, it should right. They say when you know better, you do better. So doing better is the expression of knowledge. And then the, the evidence of having that knowledge, is an understanding right. They say if you um don't, when you understand something, you don't have to judge it, because you understand it right. And so that was knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and we move on to culture freedom.
Speaker 1:Once one gets knowledge, wisdom and understanding, you start to move again. You behave different, you choose friends different, you value things differently, you have a different system of priorities and morals and principles. And so that's the culture freedom. That can be well. I choose to express myself as a member of the nations of the gods and the earth, but maybe I identify with the rosters to a certain degree, maybe I still like to wear gold chains and maybe I still like to smoke a joint every now and then, but I'm still an upright man. Just because I'm doing those things doesn't mean that I'm a criminal deviant. Both can be true, right, and so that's that's the beauty of this philosophy knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Don't understand, and it starts to liberate you a certain, to a certain degree, because whether you don't drink and you're a muslim and I'm not a muslim as a nations of the god and the earth, but we both value islam, why am I a bad person? Because you don't drink, but I do as long as I'm not getting intoxicated. Because, to be clear, the qu? Quran says just that to not get intoxicated doesn't say don't drink, right. So we, we move into, like the, the, the, the liberatory part of what knowledge and information does for you, and then you go into power refinement. How do you choose to express all of this information that you're getting, all of the alignment, the mobilization and the whole? Now, because knowledge is in power, right, the application of knowledge is power. So power refinement is that, the application of that.
Speaker 1:That's number five. Number six is equality. Right, you have to understand who you are and who God is. You have to understand who the woman is and who you are. You know this even speaks to a certain degree in the dynamic of gender roles. They didn't articulate it this way, but in some ways they did. You know, it doesn't matter if you're a woman, because the man is God. The woman is the earth, because she produces and sustains life right. And so the black man is the sun right, because the sun has to feed the earth in order to sustain itself. Sure, is there some misogyny in there and all of that, but people have to remember this is in the 1960s, historically, context is everything right, whether we agree, right or wrong to some degree, I think it's still okay because, just because a man wants to take care of his partner in a heterosexual relationship, that's a woman. It's not to say that he thinks any less of her. She shouldn't think less of herself too. I'm happy to be corrected on that. I just think that that aspect is still a form of cultural preservation in between a man and a woman, for sure.
Speaker 1:And then seven is God. So you know, it ties back to the Quran and the Bible, obviously, when they say God rested on the seventh day because he was creating and he took a day of rest. But it also extends to arm, leg, leg, arm, head, you know, and penis, you know, and the heart and the seven chakras and all these different things. That ties into other schools of thought, spiritual schools of thought. And then you got eight, which is to build and destroy. To build and destroy is not necessarily to like blow up a town and, you know, try to reestablish your own colony. I guess you could think about it like that, but we were never like that as a people. Not, not really. But this is in the sense of you know, if you want to be a better person, if you want change, then something has to be torn down so that it can make room for something else. It's no different than when the Buddha said all meetings end in separation and all buildings end in ruin and all ruins become something new to be built.
Speaker 1:No different from that this is centuries you know what I'm saying Centuries, and then you've got nine. Nine is a born right. It represents the nine months that women carry children to turn, but it also represents the numerical completion of the number nine. Everything after number nine is a combination of what came before it. So in many ways, nine is the most complete number in mathematics because everything after that is a combination of the numbers that came before it, and it's a lot more science that goes into that, but I'll just leave it there. At the service we can have a whole podcast. And then 10 or 0 is cipher, because, as I said, it starts back over and cipher is 360 degrees, never ending. Like I said, everything after number 9 is just a combination of what came before it.
Speaker 1:So it becomes like Cypher yeah, yeah, and that's what you have. And this could be done interchangeable, like if you and I were going to meet for dinner. You'll say, yo, ish, what time you want to meet. And I say let's meet at the God hour because God is number seven, right, okay, yeah, yeah, you god hour because god is number seven, right, okay, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying, you know. So it's like that. You'll be like yo, uh, what what's today's date? Today's the 14th.
Speaker 1:So you'll say, uh, uh, today's mathematics is, is, is, is knowledge, uh, let me see, let me get this right knowledge, knowledge and culture freedom, all being born and culture freedom all being born. I mean knowledge, knowledge, all being born of knowledge and culture freedom. So knowledge, knowledge, one one, 11, 14, all being born on 14, which is God, god times, god, right. So you could still have that. And then you had, like, you know, yes and no, y equals self is yes, y equals self, no is now cipher, right? So you still had all these things. Instead of saying peace, you say positive energy always creates elevation. You know what I'm saying. So that was a way of saying hello and goodbye, you know right, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was. It was a dynamic culture that was very attractive to the younger generation and they wanted in, but at the same time they were being radicalized, even on a political level.
Speaker 2:Yo, man, like I wish I'd grown up, like you know, exposed to this shit, because I definitely do see the relevance of it. You know, because even when you're going through those, those numbers, it was interesting for me that they also represent my stages of development personally, like across the last, you know, three, three to five years, I'd say. You know, I've kind of gone through those levels and it's almost as if, like you know, it's kind of that step by step and you know, and it ultimately gets you to, you know, cipher, and then you know, it repeats itself, right, because, like the learning process, is eternal, you could say so.
Speaker 2:I believe knowledge, and you were already saying this, right, how knowledge, wisdom and understanding are essential to truly seeing the world, and, you know, to be able to recognize our moral duty to empower our collective consciousness, right? So I'd love to get a little bit deeper into those three, particularly with knowledge, right, which is the first step. Right, you're talking about how, like it's almost like this journey from unconsciousness to consciousness, right, across those first three and the pursuit of knowledge being the first, and you know it means moving beyond ignorance, you know, and seeking deeper truths, and it's like the initial stage of awakening, right? This realization that life holds more than survival or passive acceptance. And it's another thing, I guess, like knowledge reveals that appearances are not the full reality, and it should spark curiosity and a desire to seek new perspectives and hidden truths. So what do you think is a spark? We need to realize the importance of seeking knowledge of oneself and the world.
Speaker 1:I think it should be considered a rite of passage, especially for the African or the Black person, and I mean anywhere in the world. There is no place in the world where an African body is truly free. Truly, the Sahel is getting close. Salute to the Sahel. Oh right, they're getting close, I'm pulling for them, I'm about to come, I'm coming y'all, but right now there is not one. And when I mean free, I mean in the most material sense economically, politically, culturally, where we're not having any of those things dictated.
Speaker 1:Fred Hampton used to say real power is when political power is when you can create a phenomenon that acts for our interests and ours alone. You know I'm butchering it, but this is just paraphrasing. That's what he wants. So you know, seeking knowledge and having some form of wisdom and understanding should be considered a rite of passage when you get a certain age, for the African person, for the African child, because without that you're lost. You're a product of your environment, without question. And it's not to say that the Malcolm Xs and the Marcus Garvey's and the fun guys and the issues aren't products of their environment. It's just that we're aware that we're a product. We're aware you know what I'm saying, that's different. You know what I'm saying? That's different. You know what I'm saying? That old, uh uh african proverb that says to to not not to know is bad, to wish to not know is worse. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like two deaths.
Speaker 1:So having knowledge right having knowledge is very important because it's an introduction not only to the world externally, it's an introduction to the world internally. You start to understand trauma and violence and you start to be able to question how they define terms and their nomenclature, and the way they define things and their definitions and how it always seems to work in their favor. And then you start to move different and then, through that, you do become radicalized. Remember, radicalization is an expression of one's humanity under empire period. You know, and this is what Franz Fanon taught us. You know, that's what Franz Fanon taught us.
Speaker 1:So, knowledge, wisdom and understanding, it should be considered a rite of passage, not only for like. It should be treated the same as a bar mitzvah. Or, you know, when the Southeast Asians have theirs, you know, when they become of age. You know, there's rites of passage in every culture, but it should be based on collectively, as a culture. Culture for me, as far as I'm a pan-african socialist. So for me it should be one where we understand who we are, what happened, oh, you know who did what to us.
Speaker 1:We learned geographical histories, not even just, uh, who we are, but the ground we stand on it, to the stars above our heads, because it's important to remember that all of that got colonized, beloved, all of that got colonized. They not only changed the name of the ground from whatever it was to Nigeria, from whatever it was to America, the United States of America, but they also changed the stars. I mean these assholes. They call it Mars and Jupiter, and you know, that was, I'm sure that wasn't the name of the stars, right, but you know, if you want to own something, you're going to put your name on it, and that's what colonialism is.
Speaker 1:But it also sought to destroy the African identity and replace it with some bastardized version of what they wanted us to be. So, without knowledge, you don't know all of that. And so now you're moving through the world with this toxic version of who you really are, even though probably something inside of you is questioning it, but it can present as self-hate, but maybe you're just questioning like why am I doing this, or why does this matter, Et cetera, et cetera. And so knowledge, wisdom and understanding should be the first step in liberation, because liberation and revolution is not a moment, it's a series of moments. So it's a revolutionary act to come to know yourself.
Speaker 2:For sure, man, and you know, whether it's words, language or culture as a whole, all three of them define and express how we think and the things that we do believe, right? So if you don't question the words that you speak, if you're not curious about you, know where they come from, then your perception of what's around you is going to be based off. You know you're talking about ignorance, and then there's also, you know, wishful ignorance, right? So not knowing the things you're talking about, you know, resembles that because you're shaping a world that stands to exploit and extract from you, you know, to manipulate you, constantly taking yeah, so I guess we can then get into the stage of wisdom, right? Because?
Speaker 2:So this is the second stage, where it shifts from knowledge from you, you know, from passive acquisition, to active application, right? So we're looking at, I guess, knowledge is essential and you know, using it to navigate life's challenges in practical ways. That's where the wisdom comes in, right, and it combines intellect and intuition. And so now we're able to transform that knowledge into guiding principles. And, like you know, as I was reading about stage, one of the things that really stuck out for me was how wisdom turns knowledge into these principles. Which wisdom is history you know in and how it reflects knowledge in action? Um, allowing us to interpret today, with the benefit of you know, our ancestors, hindsight right. Um, and connecting a different school of thought here Sankofa, right, or return to the source, that's right. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's full circle, and it's so interesting that you said that, because it comes back to like nine being born, right, and the number nine represents being born, and 10 or zero is cipher, right, and? And so, if it's a constant learning to learn more, you know, and you're all returning, because I was that you were speaking it. I was just thinking like it's so fluid too, because the more you learn, the more you understand. It never stops, it never ceases, it just comes right back to it. And we all know the saying which says experience is the cruelest but best of teachers. And so they have this saying called, in God's and the nation, knowledging the wisdom. Knowledging the wisdom is when you become wise, because you took the time to learn something, or you were wise enough to take someone's advice, someone who was more learned than you. And they have a saying called wisdoming the knowledge is when you learn it the hard way. The hard way, the hard way. Right, yeah, you learn, get wise from the experience.
Speaker 1:You know, saying knowledge from the experience, and so I'm thinking in terms of the sankofa principle of always flying forward but never forgetting where you came from. You're always evolving from the point of origin of knowing right, no matter what. I went through a number of schools of religions, obviously Baptist, muslim, hebrew. Back to Muslim study. I was like practicing a form of Egyptology and Buddhism, and you know all these things. I'm a seeker, right? I'm a see form of Egyptology and Buddhism, and you know all these things. I'm a seeker, right, I'm a seeker of truth. And so all these things, no matter how I evolved into each school, I look at them as all schools Like. This is geometry, this is physics, you know. This is architecture. This is social studies, right, this is history, this is archaeology. So that's how I look at all of them, because I can see what we interpret as the presence of God in all of those schools. Whether I'm was plagiarized or whatever, it's a certain frequency. In all of those writings and all of those publishings, someone witnessed something divine, and if they didn't have the language to express something that was a first, they just didn't have that. Or because it was translated and mistranslated a million times over, you know, it became something else. Right, but the source of what was being expressed is, in fact, truth. And so when you look at knowledge, wisdom, understanding, whether it's with the Nation of Islam, who set that foundation to the nuanced version, with the nations, the gods and the earth, that's your foundation as a person who's a truth seeker or a revolutionary or a radical, you can't have that. George Jackson had to have knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Marcus Garvey had to have that. You know. Honorable Elijah Muhammad had to have knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Marcus Garvey had to have that. You know what I'm saying. Honorable Elijah Muhammad had to have that. And when you think about it, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was a student of Marcus Garvey's and Marcus Garvey took knowledge, wisdom and understanding those principles from masonry. We know that masonry is an expression of intellectual endeavor and culture to refine a person, to be more upright, physically, spiritually, intellectually.
Speaker 1:From the Romans. We know that, the Romans, from Aristotle and Socrates, who I believe that I might I might get this backwards, but Aristotle was the student of Socrates, who wrote all of Socrates teachings down, because Socrates didn't write shit down, or even vice versa, right, and so I'm still going back, stay with me. So Socrates wrote, or spoke, what he was, how he felt in his wisdom to Aristotle. And Aristotle recorded the thoughts and the comments of Socrates. And Socrates spoke of African people because, remember, race nor the construct existed at that time. So right, so he spoke of African people with such admiration. They are far more intelligent than we are, they are far, they're tracing the stars and we're debating if the earth is flat or round. You know what I'm saying. So this comes all the way back. So when you look at the 120, it still comes from an African source. All of it. All of it.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate how you laid it out that way, you know, because when people hear the term, you know, return to source, I feel like maybe some people may feel like it's a fad, or like you know, or they feel as if why should I learn, you know, something off the past? Or like why should I return to the past? Right, when we're living in present day. But I think that's where they miss the, I guess, crux of it evolution you mentioned. Right, because the idea is not for us to take systems of old and to place them into today's society. Right, because that's square into a round hole. Right, the idea is to take those teachings from the past and learning from them and evolving those frameworks to fit into today's context. Right, because we have to remember that the people who wrote these teachings were not living in today's society, so how could they have frameworks in place for a time that they haven't lived yet? And that's where our responsibility then comes. Right, because none of us exist in a vacuum, so that therefore means any part of our lives is a product of people who came before us. So our responsibility collectively, then, should be to take those teachings and then to apply them into today's context, and I guess you know that then leads us into the third stage as well understanding, right, where it's like this culmination of the journey toward consciousness, right, and wisdom becomes a unified perspective.
Speaker 2:You know, connecting knowledge and experiences into like this cohesive whole. You know connecting knowledge and experiences into like this cohesive whole. You know, and you're now able to connect the dots between you know, truths, ideas, people and events, right, and all of this, I guess you know it's akin to enlightenment, right, the whole idea of like seeing the bigger picture. So this stage is like fostering clarity, empathy and this sense of connection. And when I think of the Black condition, we need clarity of self and the world. We need empathy to understand how we became victims of our own oppression. We need the connection to recognize our shared heritage. You know, whether you're Afro-Caribbean, whether you're Afro-Latin, whether you're continental or beyond, there is and I guess maybe that also speaks to where I'm at currently, you know, mentally, I I feel that for a very long time we have separated our experiences and there's been little attempts to connect our shared history it's true, it's true, um, it's, it's, they really did a number and this is what empire does.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, the empire seeks to divide and conquer, or conquer and then divide it. You take your pick, um, and so having knowledge itself, um, changes you not just on. I mean, I listen, I, I'm, I appreciate spirituality as much as the next man. The older I get, the more I realize that it's okay to want material change too, right, and so the knowledge and your understanding, your intellect, should. I think it's more important to have a material impact to your condition by what you learn, and that's a testimony to how valid it is Right. Like, if you learn something that is not changing your material conditions, then it's probably a placebo or crisis cult. What we know is, when we look at empires falling, crisis cults were one of the things that we find. A crisis cult is when people start to believe in magical thinking as a means to deal with the stress and the trauma and the violence around them from living in an empire that's falling apart. I don't think that that's what you know. This, this, this diasporan organization and movement, was because they had they had political aspirations. They never got that far in terms of organizing an agenda, but it's important to learn something that can seek to change your and transform your condition, and I want to emphasize that because that in and of itself is radicalism. Right, that is radicalism.
Speaker 1:People have to remember this was in the 1960s. This was in the 1960s and the politics of race and class and you know just how neocolonialism functioned was, was was really shrewd. It's bad now, but it's more nuanced and more sophisticated now. Back then it was just more in your face. So if someone's saying that you're a nigger and someone's saying that you're a savage and that you're a monkey for generations, and you're seeing and hearing your mother and father being spoken to this way, you're seeing and hearing your mother and father being spoken to this way, you're seeing and hearing your grandmother and your grandmother grandfather being spoken to this way, and then you walk down the street somewhere on Lenox Avenue in Harlem and you see a black dude, just like you look, just like your father, saying a black man is God, like the God I mean, think about that. And they're saying that the gods that other people are believing in is spook gods. It's make believe gods, because I can't see them and neither can you. Again, rational materialism, Though they didn't express it or articulate it that way. That's what it's speaking to right, don't pray to nothing that you can't see. The white man is a devil, not the devil as in the exorcist, or the tail or the feet, but because of who he was and how he did.
Speaker 1:You know what happened legislatively, judicially, how they locked us up, created laws. Remember this is still doing Jim Crow. The Voting Rights Act did not take effect until 1964 and 1965. And the nations and the gods of the earths, through the founders of the first nine and Clarencece 13 next, and justice and the other they called the high scientists. They were living in a time where black people didn't even had a right to vote. Still, jim Crow redlining black tax Right. All of this is still there their. His parents remember the bombing of Black Wall Street and all these other things, the Tuskegee experiment.
Speaker 1:All of this is that people have to understand to your point earlier. We have to. You can't just read history, you have to contextualize it. You have to understand what is going on around them. What is going on? Malcolm X gets assassinated a year later in 1965. Dr King three, four years later, in 1968. You understand.
Speaker 1:So to have such a profound, radical extreme. Let's be clear, it was extreme. Not only is the white man the devil, but so is his woman and his baby. You understand this. This is what they were on. Yeah, we don't have a different don't rule for none of y'all. Yeah, because we have to be that extreme and that excessive with loving ourselves and saying I can't trust none of y'all some of y'all are cool, but I can't trust none of y'all still have done. And that ties into other uh propagandic dogma in their, in their uh, ideology in terms of jacob being the devil. We could get into that later, but if you want, but the point of the matter is, is that you know to contextualize the environment in the, in the ecosystem that this ideology and philosophical view was born in and how it impacted black people.
Speaker 1:Every day, people are putting you down, calling you a monkey. You're riding in the back of the bus. You have to seat in the color section and then you come on the street on Lenox Ave and you see some poor black man who looks just like you and he's talking about how much the earth weighs and he's calling you goddess and earth. He's calling himself God. They speak in encoded language. You know, like I said, they're not saying fuck the police, they're saying father, you see, king the police. You know they're not afraid of the police. So you know it was a very profound culture shock, as you can imagine, because they were familiar with the nation of Islam and Malcolm X. They were familiar with Honorable Elijah Muhammad, but this was different because it was nuanced, it was nuanced.
Speaker 2:So one of my favorite terms at the moment is off the alphabet. I remember I saw this when I was watching Wu-Tang American Saga and the RZA would say this at least the character that I was playing, the RZA, zig-zag-zig, yeah, man, because I thought that was more like just ordinary lingo. I didn't know that was a part of the alphabet and it also in some ways it encapsulates our whole conversation because it's like this iterative process of like knowledge, wisdom and understanding and then it loops itself again knowledge, wisdom and understanding, because like the more you know, the more you get you become more open to more perspectives and like you know, the more shit you get to explore and the better you understand yourself and what's around you that's real zigzag, you know.
Speaker 1:It bounces knowledge, wisdom, understanding, like black man, black woman, black baby, and it just keeps going. You know I'm saying love, peace and freedom. You know it just keeps going. You can't separate those two and consider yourself whole you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So it was that, that type of radical methodology in terms of transforming your thinking. It just it challenged you to think differently about yourself. Again, context is everything. It may seem small time right now or it may seem trivial right now, but it was. This was. This was real. You know, you had you know what you would consider like illiterate young people walking around knowing a thing or two. Because you had to know what you would consider like illiterate young people walking around knowing a thing or two. Because you had to notice by heart. They would question you and if you didn't get the answer, then maybe you might. You know, you might catch a few lumps.
Speaker 2:You know how it was you know, yeah, and like I love the fact that, like you know, it kind of became this code, you know where. So, like you've got the, the alphabet which you know, it kind of became this code, you know where. So, like you've got the, the alphabet which, again you know, represents these philosophical meanings to each letter, you know, and then it's like it becomes this whole language system when you've got the numbers and you know. So the mathematics and the alphabet coming together, you, you get to understand even the daily life principles of you know, wisdoming, knowledge. You know what I mean. And that's the thing like where it's like it wasn't just this airy-fairy sort of you know, high up in the clouds philosophy. You know it was teachings that were helping people survive on the streets. On the streets, you know it was philosophies that were helping people understand how to survive a system that is built to bring them down. The other day, actually, we're talking about wu-tang, right and um, how, you know, everybody knows the wu, everybody knows the wu sign and all. But like, people don't, you know, know the story, of story of the Wu, and you know when you do start to see their story and it's not unique to Wu-Tang, you know, you see, the impact that you know the 5% Nation had on hip hop culture, you know.
Speaker 2:And then now we look, you know how, over the years, hip hop has strayed from its roots as a culture of resistance. Originally it was meant to represent real-life experiences of the community and not just serve as entertainment. And it frustrates me personally, where I've been listening to rap for over 25 years and it only took me until, I'd say, the last 12 months to really get up on Raskaz, lord Jamal or Rakim, you know, like I've known about them, right, but never really gotten into, like even listening to, if not their music or but even what they're about. You know artists who promote agency, and you know, amid systemic inequality, you know, and even though I'm not American and I've never been, but I can draw a lot of parallels.
Speaker 2:And you look at how, today, right, where mainstream platforms will mostly push music which is focused on materialism, misogyny and violence, I mean, while those stories are part of our reality, they are part of our culture, culture for sure. You know, there's this heavy focus on that one side and it creates an imbalance, right, because it becomes a one sided narrative, you know, and it limits hip hop or black communities? Narrative or cultural depth? How has the 5% Nation shaped hip hop, you know, as far as you understand it, and how come we see less of its impact in today's music?
Speaker 1:Man. We could do a whole episode on that. It's fascinating, bro, because when you look at the culture of intellectualism, listen, to be an African diaspora is to be a contradiction. We're African in America, we're still African, but we have a lot of Western ways. We're still African, but we have an ungodly amount of colonial European blood, which you know. We love our people and we yet have made nigga a term of endearment. You know so the contradictions go on and on and on. And so you find that in hip-hop culture as well, especially in hip-hop culture, and it's tragic, but at the same time it's also very empowering. So when tragic, but at the same time it's also very empowering. So when you look at the golden age of hip hop, let's look at the beginning of hip hop. You had many of the first songs in hip hop.
Speaker 1:Culture is a social commentary. You know what I'm saying. It's like that, and that's the way it is, by Run DMC war's going on across the sea. You know what I'm saying. They're talking about geopolitics. They moved into materialism. Money is the key to end all your woes, your ups, your downs, your highs and your lows, right. And so it's questioning to KRS-One, saying love's going to get you. And then if we go back even more, we run into Schoolie D or we run into 6 in the morning. You know 6 in the morning, police at my door. Fresh Adidas squeak across my bathroom floor. He's talking about the police rushing his house first thing in the morning. He's a drug dealer trying to figure it out and a lot of people don't understand to be a drug dealer is. Drug dealers are not inherently violent. They're making a choice to sell something. That is recession proof. And when you're cut off from a number of opportunities and your back is against the wall, you would soon find out how fast that moral needle moves. Just a little bit. It forced you to do certain things, so it's still a commentary there. So then, when you look at the presence of the uh, the 120 lessons, or the nations of the gods and the earth, uh, as we move out of that, then you got the jungles. It's like a jungles of time. It makes me wonder how I keep going under, right, yeah, so, so hip hip-hop was really a culture that was platforming, a voice for the voiceless.
Speaker 1:Then you come into the golden age, which I think starts in like 85 to like, I would say, about 95, 1995. And you come across Rakim a lot, eric, being Rakim paid in full. He is probably one of the most important emcees and voices in hip hop culture period. In the story was equal parts, street spirituality and culture. Again we go back to 13x. He was not walking a straight path, he was not as super dogmatic about, you know, the, uh, the abstinence of smoking and drinking, but yet he still had a very high mind and he was, uh, you know, radicalized. So, eric, you saw this in Rakim a lot, and so he was one of the first MCs in the forefront who platformed the nations and the gods and the earths. You know what I'm saying in his music. He was one of the first ones and it changed things because it became a market for it. At least back then hip hop, still in the, in its, in its infant stage, uh, corporate, uh, the corporate powers that be. Snuffed it out quick and we'll get there. But Rakim and Law was the first.
Speaker 1:Then you had a public enemy, even though they weren't five percent, is the, the, the presence of mind, to borrow from certain vernacular, from the Black Panthers as well as the nations of the gods and the earth, is, in their music right, fear of a Black Planet. Ma Uzi Weighs a Ton. These are all sentiments that's connected to Black Panther, radical traditions, as well as Nations of Gods and Earth. Then we move into Poor Righteous Teachers, right, poor, righteous Teachers. They were clear five percenters. If you listen to the first album. Second album, they got the star and the seven, the universal flag, which is the flag of the Nations of Gods and Earths, the five percent nation. And then you move into Brand New being and all these other things.
Speaker 1:But it brought a certain level of intellectualism and hip hop, political intellectualism and radical commentary Arrest the president, right, arrest the president. In fact, that emcee's name was Intelligent Hoodlum. Right, arrest the president. Think about that. A black kid from the hood at the time that George Bush the father was the president, had a song out that was a hit called Arrest the President. Think about that. You know you had Fight the Power, you had Arrest the President.
Speaker 1:And then you can speed it all the way up forward into like MCs like Nas, yassin Bey or Mos Def, jay Electronica, who's a member of the Nation of Islam, but that's still the foundation for the Nations of the Gods and the Earths, and, of course, wu-tang right, who was very active in deliberately immersing their entire Wu-Tang culture, even the first nine members, mimics, the first nine members, mimics, the first nine members of the Nations of the Gods and Herbs, you know, and U-God you know. And, like you said, the RZA, the GZA, all of that you know. The GZA's first album is full of 5% knowledge and doctrine, so it represented, in my opinion, the most intellectual time in hip hop culture. You had Fight to Power, you had we All in the Same Game, you had X-Clan, boogie Down Production and even though these guys were not members of the Nations of Gods and Earths, they still had that knowledge. And then you had Grand Poobah and Grand Nubians. Grand Poobah amazing, they had a song called Sunshine. That was their single, which was about the upliftment and having knowledge yourself and all these different things.
Speaker 1:And so you've seen that get snuffed out because it started to create a sense of awareness and Black intelligentsia among the masses always create social dissidents and rebellions and marches, and what we know is from the moment Lyndon B Johnson was in office and it was a case to pacify us with legislation and materialism and integration. And so we saw this staunch position of social dissidents start to dissipate and become more pacified. Because we were able to buy houses, the bourgeois class started to convince the rest of us that we was okay. It's not as bad as it was like for our parents, but in fact it was. It was just different, different. So you saw that get snuffed out, and so now you see hip-hop artists who aren't even trying, the ones that are being platformed. They're not even trying to say anything that's worth any merit. It's all bombastic, it's just loud and empty, right, and so it's unfortunate, but that's that's deliberately done. It's not that there aren't intelligent artists out here who have something to say.
Speaker 2:They just won't be platform you know, and I almost feel like I hate the fact that, like they sort of opened up the world to us, right, because that allowed, to what you're saying, a lot of us to be pacified, you know, and and that has really been a our detriment, because the thing is, it's not so real, the threat is not so immediate anymore, so it's allowed a whole lot of us to be able to afford to not want to seek knowledge or wisdom. You, these certain privileges now, where you know you don't have to worry about whether you're gonna be around tomorrow or not. So, man, this I'd love to talk a whole lot more about this because, like, there's so much you know we can really get into. You know we're talking about the different tangents we can, like, really get into.
Speaker 2:But I think I wanted this episode to also, like really serve a purpose of, like, I guess, giving people an overall understanding of the nation, but a better understanding as well of the context, you know. You know I was just talking about how there's just that one narrative you know, like, where there's just one side or one narrative of of us that's a lot louder, and I think it's on us as well to like to paint the bigger picture so people get to really understand what is the black condition. You know. So I really appreciate you coming through and for, you know, sharing all this knowledge and and and wisdom, and you know I also hope that this garners that or sparks that curiosity for people to like, want, want to know more about this.
Speaker 2:And you know other aspects. You know we're talking about how it also ties into different schools of thought as well. You know so it's we're all influencing each other, especially when you look at the history of the black struggle. You know there's a lot of connections there. So again, thank you for for coming through. Fam. This has been really dope man. It's my pleasure Anytime, I love it and for the listener as always, stay black.
