Coachella, Afrika Bambaataa, and Their Lord and Savior Donald Trump

Summary

Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay
Episode: Coachella, Afrika Bambaataa, and Their Lord and Savior Donald Trump
Date: April 14, 2026
Podcast by The Ringer

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Episode Overview

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay delve into some of the week's biggest cultural, political, and music moments, focusing on their firsthand Coachella experiences, the complexities of separating art from artists amid Afrika Bambaataa’s scandal, political fallout from allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell, the idolization of Trump in the MAGA movement, and more. The episode is rich in debate, humor, nostalgia, and cultural analysis.

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Coachella 2026 Recap

Rachel's Last-Minute Trip ([00:14]–[02:39])

• Rachel attended Coachella spontaneously for her friend Natasha’s birthday and to see Justin Bieber, recounting logistics and adventures with her friends.
• She reflects on possibly being “over” festival life, citing crowds and the hassle:
  “It’s such a hustle. It’s so, like… You can’t just enjoy yourself like you want to.” (Rachel, [01:08])

Notable Performances

• Saw Bieber, Major Lazer (who brought out M.I.A.), and Young Thug.
• M.I.A.'s appearance sparked a discussion about how public figures like her and Kanye weather controversy differently ([02:04]–[02:20]).

Justin Bieber’s Headlining Set ([03:52]–[10:45])

• Bieber’s minimalist set received mixed reactions:
  • Performed in a hoodie, minimal production, used YouTube midway due to contractual limitations from selling his song catalog:
    “The YouTube thing also has to do with the fact that he doesn’t own those songs anymore…he sold his catalog in 2022.” (Van, [06:05])
  • The set was a split: die-hard fans enjoyed its nostalgia; others wanted more.
  • Bieber paid tribute to his Day One fans and performed duets with Wiz Kid and Tems.

Rachel’s Take

• She embraced the minimalism and nostalgia, enjoying Bieber’s focus on artistry over spectacle:
  “I liked the minimalist approach…It felt a tribute to the Day Ones.” (Rachel, [09:07])

Van’s Observations

• Noted generational differences in Bieber fandom; was struck by Bieber performing with his “younger self” on-screen:
  “It was interesting watching him sit there as an older man…be like, on the screen.” (Van, [12:20])

Sabrina Carpenter’s Yodeling Controversy ([12:49]–[17:02])

• Carpenter paused her set after hearing celebratory “zaghruta” (Arabic yodel) from the crowd, expressing confusion in the moment; later apologized when she learned its significance.
• Rachel analyzes the quick cycle of criticism and apology, rating Carpenter’s response:
  “If I was giving this apology a rating, I would give it like a seven.” (Rachel, [16:32])
• Van argues for more grace:
  “We really do have to have just a smidge more of grace and patience with one another…” (Van, [15:51])

Reflections on Coachella Culture

• Rachel and Van debate the festival FOMO, Rachel vowing not to return ("I did exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to see Bieber" [22:03]).
• Young Thug’s set features a playful backstage moment with Teyana Taylor.

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Separating Art from Artist: Afrika Bambaataa’s Legacy and Abuse ([24:02]–[38:45])

Recap of Abuse Allegations

• Hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa died at 68, but his legacy is marred by widespread allegations of sexual abuse spanning decades. Main points:
  • At least 12 accusers; cases often involved grooming and the abuse of power in the Zulu Nation ([24:31]–[26:17]).
  • Civil suit default judgment in 2025 after Bambaataa failed to respond.

Response in Hip-Hop

• KRS-One and others argued for maintaining reverence despite abuse, a stance Van and Rachel critique sharply.
  • Van analyzes the danger in idolizing artists over victims:
    “You don’t have to honor anyone. There are certainly things that one can do that makes them unworthy of being honored.” (Van, [28:59])
  • Rachel emphasizes centering victims and setting a strict standard:
    “Respect is something that is earned…you have to make sure you’re centering the victim.” (Rachel, [31:03])

The Broader Cultural Indictment

• Van: The real issue is not one man, but when a culture protects abusers (see: R. Kelly, Michael Jackson):
  “How much art do you have to produce in order for the privilege to rape a 9 year old?” (Van, [34:11])

• Rachel: Urges demanding accountability and not allowing “art” to excuse harm ([35:44]–[36:17]).

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Politics: Allegations Against Rep. Eric Swalwell ([43:24]–[57:52])

Background

• CA Rep. Eric Swalwell ends his governor run amid serious sexual assault/misconduct allegations by multiple women ([43:26]).
• Rachel and Van dissect his public statement, noting blame-shifting (“the timing…is very convenient,” Rachel, [45:09]) and lack of accountability.

Broader Political Dynamics

• Van: Politicians exploit tribalism, deflecting blame as “politically motivated attacks”—and it works:
  “They’re taught to speak in the language of, this isn’t about what I did or didn’t do. This is about…the other side mounting this challenge against me.” ([50:56])
• Rachel: Calls out the dangers of minimizing and excusing abuse, especially by those with power:
  “We have to normalize the fact that when people are abused, they don’t follow a certain playbook.” (Rachel, [55:36])

Van’s Endorsement

• Makes a rare public endorsement for Butch Ware for California Governor, citing alignment of principles ([53:09]–[54:31]).

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The Idolization and Religious Parallels of Trump ([59:09]–[67:09])

Trump’s “Christ” Post

• Trump posts—then deletes—an AI image depicting himself as Jesus, following an attack on the Pope ([59:24]–[59:54]).

• Van connects MAGA loyalty to religious worship:
  “Everything that Donald Trump does is mysterious to us but will work out in the end. That’s faith. That’s religion. That’s God. Right?” (Van, [60:13])

• Rachel breaks down followers’ cognitive dissonance:
  “They condemn him for all this, right?...That was just a little too much…He was just kidding.” (Rachel, [63:39])

Trump’s Response

• Trump dodges, claiming the image was him as a doctor for Red Cross. Van and Rachel parse the absurdity.

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Street Morality, Hip-Hop, and the Gucci Mane–Poo Shiesty Saga ([72:18]–[84:28])

Gucci Mane’s Response to Robbery Allegations

• After being allegedly robbed/kidnapped by Poo Shiesty, Gucci responds with “Crash Dummy,” sparking debate about street loyalty and legal cooperation.
• Finesse2times criticizes Gucci for “snitching,” equating it with violating street codes ([75:00]–[76:21]).
• Van contextualizes the street code as a quasi-religion, explaining why such values persist—and why they appear increasingly outmoded as people age ([77:46]–[84:28]).
• Rachel counters that real community protection should break from traditions that ultimately harm its own ([84:28]–[86:02]).

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Interlude: Arcade Lock-Ins and “Lines” in Growing Up ([92:13]–[98:36])

• Van reminisces nostalgically about staying up all night at arcade lock-ins in his early 20s. Rachel teasingly calls it “the line,” sparking laughter—leading Van to relate it to why some people abandon wholesome spaces for street life and validation ([95:16]–[98:36]).

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Black Church, Culture, and the “King” Song Controversy ([99:52]–[108:21])

Transformation Church Adapts “Fiend” ([99:52]–[102:26])

• Viral moment: Transformation Church flips the song “Fiend” into a gospel “King,” facing backlash for secular influences in worship.
• Van and Rachel defend the act, viewing it as cultural reclamation and innovation:
  “There’s literally nothing in this earth that cannot be used to give the glory to God.” (Roosevelt Stewart, [101:17])
• Critique stems from both traditionalist and non-church circles, with Van noting that much criticism reflects a generalized mistrust of church institutions.

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Notable Quotes

• On Coachella and Nostalgia:
  “It was the grown version, and you had the back of him, and he was singing to the younger version…you know, he was remembering where he had come from.” (Rachel, [08:44])
• On Afrika Bambaataa’s Legacy:
  “You don’t have to honor anyone. And there are certainly things that one can do that makes them unworthy of being honored.” (Van, [28:59])
• On Excusing Powerful Men:
  “Why can’t people just be held accountable for what they do?...That’s literally been the theme of this podcast.” (Rachel, [77:46])
• On Street Codes:
  “When you hear finesse talk about Gucci, Gucci is now a heretic to him. It’s not just a code. He’s rejected, legitimately, the orienting principle of this guy’s life.” (Van, [78:24])
• On the Black Church’s Cultural Role:
  “There’s nothing wrong with it. They took a song, and they actually cleverly flipped the song, and then they made something catchy out there.” (Van, [102:18])
• On MAGA and Trump as God:
  “They were already worshiping him…at some point he was going to be like, they must be right. I must be the Christ child.” (Van, [61:25])

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Additional Segments

Book Plug: Emma Grede’s “Start With Yourself” ([110:33])

• Rachel and Van recommend “Start With Yourself” by Emma Grede, co-founder of Good American and Skims, as a guide for meaningful, independent success.

Brief Mention: Ashley Janae Robinson Case ([111:47])

• Discussion of the social media fallout and gendered commentary after the mysterious death of influencer Ashley Janae Robinson in Africa, with more discourse promised for the next episode.

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Episode Theme

Accountability vs. Excuse-Making in Culture, Music, and Power:
Across every topic, Van and Rachel challenge the audience and each other to consider how fandom, tradition, or power can enable harm—or help break cycles and advance communities toward higher ideals.

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Key Timestamps (Highlights)

• [00:14]–[10:45]: Coachella recap, Bieber’s set, and generational nostalgia
• [12:49]–[17:02]: Sabrina Carpenter’s cultural misstep and apology
• [24:02]–[38:45]: Afrika Bambaataa’s troubled legacy and hip-hop’s response
• [43:24]–[57:52]: Rep. Eric Swalwell’s scandal and political tribalism
• [59:09]–[67:09]: Trump’s “Christ” meme and evangelical MAGA parallels
• [72:18]–[84:28]: Gucci Mane, street codes, and shifting hip-hop morality
• [99:52]–[108:21]: Church music innovation and the culture of mistrust

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For listeners and newcomers alike, this episode is a thoughtful, lively, and direct conversation on cultural accountability—and why it matters more than ever.

Transcript

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yo, yo, yo, tall warriors, what is up? Higher learning is on. It's zah Van Lathan Jr. And it's

[Rachel Lindsay]

me, Rachel and Lindsey.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Rachel, how was Coachella? You have to start there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, I decided to go at the very, very last minute. I'm talking, like, I left Saturday, got there Saturday afternoon, didn't know I was going till Friday. It's my homegirl's birthday today, so she wanted to go. Natasha. She wanted to go for her birthday, and I wanted to go to see Bieber. So it all happened. Just came together. A place to stay, passes, all the works. Everybody did their part to make it happen. Me, Natasha, Laila, and Layla went. Yeah, Layla went.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, interesting.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Layla went. And, like, last minute. But it was. It was worth it. But I'm telling you, I. I think I'm over it. But I said this last year at Coachella.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Every year. Come on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's such a. It's.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You're going.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's such a hustle. It's so, like. You can't just enjoy yourself like you want to. There's. It's so crowded. You can't get the weight. Like, I don't know. I think I'm just over festival life. But I did enjoy myself. I did enjoy myself. I saw not a whole lot of people. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. It was wild. Cause I'm not gonna be out there all day. But I will say I saw Bieber, of course. I saw some DJs. I saw major Lazer who brought out Mia, and I was very excited about that.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Brought out Mia?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, because Diplo did Paper Planes.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Jesus Christ.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And who else did I see?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Mia being embraced is like, on the level of a Kanye type situation.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Did she say. Did she say as many things as Kanye? I have to remember what Mia did.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, it's tough. It's really just like more anti vaxx type stuff. Not really. As. She didn't go Nazi.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. She's not Kanye, but she.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, she's not. She's not Kanye, but she's gone, like, off of sort of the conspiracy theory deep in. It's interesting.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's not sticking to her, I think, because she's not. Maybe as in the public, she's also not. But who else did I see? I tried to stay for Carol G, but I had to get back. I drove back last night.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You didn't care about Carol G. No,

[Rachel Lindsay]

she was 30 minutes late. I had to pack, drive back. I didn't get back till like two something in the morning. Yeah, I just couldn't make it, but it was cool. Did you know about one in three people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling? Does this sound like you listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away? Trimfya Guselcomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy. And for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine, imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfaia. Tap this ad to learn more about Tremphya, including important safety information.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You know what? Let's stay with Coachella. There were some interesting happenings at Coachella. You saw Bieber. I want to get your opinions on, like, how the show was in person. Let's go with Bieber.

[Donnie]

Yeah. All right. He performed on Saturday as their headliner, and the first half of his set focused on his newer tracks from swag and swag 2. And then later, he dove into his more classic hits.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

WI Fi, man. Come on. WI Fi.

[Donnie]

Was it that bad or was it better than that?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, there's two competing.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That was the whole thing that we just played.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, because there were two people were of you either liked it or you didn't like it. Right. So you're also coming off of Sabrina Carpenter, who did this whole Sabrina Wood. And it was very Once upon a time in Hollywood. Like, just very, like all the theatrics, all the drama, and it was really cool. Like, she drove away in a car. She was, you know, dancing in the rain. It was just. It was a lot like. It was a grand performance. She was Friday. Then you had Bieber on Saturday. And I think it's first time headlining, people were thinking, okay, Bieber's back. He's gonna do. He's basically following what she did as a headliner. You do a huge performance and Justin Bieber was in a hoodie, singing his songs, standing there singing his songs. And then he switched it up where he sat down. He was on a laptop and he started YouTubing, getting on YouTube and looking up his songs. But he was using the clip you just saw right there. He was using wifi from the festival, and it wasn't working. And so people were like, is this really your set? They thought that it was so minimal. They thought that he didn't do a lot because. And then they thought the YouTube thing went on for a really, really long time. And so people thought that he could have done a lot more for getting $10 million because he was the highest paid, I guess, performer that they've ever had.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

He's the highest paid performer ever in

[Rachel Lindsay]

the history of Coachella, I'm pretty sure. Right?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's 10 million bucks. Well, the YouTube thing also has to do with the fact that he doesn't own those songs anymore, so he has to. He sold his catalog in 2022, so.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So he can't sing them.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Really?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That's what has been reported. Now, I'm not so sure how that works with a live performance, but what's been reported is that some of these songs Justin couldn't include as part of his set. So he did the YouTube thing, and he only sang parts of.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He sang little bits, right?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

He sang a little bit. Little bits of them. I think that's an interesting way to go about that part of the performance, because in that part of the performance, you're hearkening back to, like, the first times that you met Justin Bieber. So it's kind of cool and nostalgic.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's what I thought. Okay. So I did not have a problem with this. I wasn't. I came to see Justin Bieber perform. I came to see him sing. I came to enjoy the experience.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You give a fuck about him like that?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I was a Belieber back in the day, so interesting.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You were, too.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, big time. Yeah.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So I like Justin Bieber. I think that every time I hear. But for me, the Justin Bieber thing is every time I hear Justin Bieber. Every time I hear Justin Bieber, I'm surprised. Like, almost every time. Every time I hear Justin Bieber, I'm surprised at number one, what a great singer he is, and how melodic and downright soulful the music can be. But like I said, I wouldn't think that you two would be, like, gigantic Justin Bieber fans.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Do you think it's because you know a lot because of your TMZ days? And there was so much going on with Justin during that time.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Perhaps. But also, I think that I'm the gap in age here. I'm only about five years older than you, but. But I think that. I think that five years really matters in this situation. Cause I was good. Good and grown. Good and grown by the time Justin Bieber came along, and he always kind of looked like a little whippersnapper in a way.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, you have to realize, at least for me, you know, I was 12. I was 11 when, like, he first started, maybe even nine when baby came out. But, like, when he really started getting popping, I was, like, 12 years old. I was heavy on Justin at the time.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Huh?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I mean, I've liked the music for a really long time. I mean, I was older. Maybe I was too old to be listening to Justin Bieber, but I've always really enjoyed his music and I loved. So, like I said, I came for him, for the music. I wanted to see him perform. I didn't care how he did it. I wasn't expecting anything. And I think a lot of people. I liked the minimalist approach. And I. For people who were so shocked that he didn't do more. If you watched his performance at the Grammys, I knew right then and there that was the vibe that I was gonna get. It was very much so about the music, about the performance of it all, like, how he was performing it. And just like him as an artist, that's what I felt like. That's what he gave us. But people were behind me. They were like, play the hits. Come on. Play the like. Cause he was screaming. I mean, not screaming. They were screaming. He was singing like hallelujah. He was doing, like, some. What felt like some new stuff. It mainly was after off Swag and Swag too, and people were upset. So then when he started doing the YouTube thing, I thought it was cool because there was a moment. There were a couple of moments where he was turned around and he was singing to himself. And so it was the grown version, and you had the back of him, and he was singing to the younger version. And he has, like, this deeper voice now compared to this baby voice he had. And it was this nostalgic experience that I thought was really cool. And, you know, he was remembering where he had come from. And then he did covers of Chris Brown, he did a cover of Neo, some of the songs that made him popular on YouTube. So I really liked if you were. That's what he kept saying. Where are my Day Ones? Do y' all remember this? Who's been with me from the beginning? So it felt a tribute to the Day Ones in that moment where everyone didn't like the YouTube. I got it. I liked it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It seems like the YouTube part only lasted for around 25 minutes. How long was the show?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Like an hour and a half.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, so, like, There was a. It seemed to be a little bit more multifaceted than what people gave him credit for online, at least as the.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I just feel like people just love to complain, you know, and pick certain things apart. Maybe watching it from home, it felt like a different experience. But being there in the m. If you were a fan, you were a fan and you appreciated it. I wasn't there, like, play the hits. I was there for the experience.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. Now when you get the $10 million, do you then take that $10 million and as part of that, what you spend on a production? Because if you take the $10 million, if they give you $10 million and part of that is financing what it is that you do. I think what he did was genius.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. That's what some people were saying also. Let's not forget he brought out Wiz Kid and Tim's.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. So we.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And that was a moment like, that was. That was a really fun time.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

If they gave me the $10 million and I would save all of the shit. I would like.

[Rachel Lindsay]

People said it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. I would say I would. What the fuck we gotta do? I make Jaden Bernard. I'd be like, hey, Jay Bernard. Between the three of us, we gotta produce. Not. Not even Donnie. Donnie would be too expensive in this situation. I need a nigga with no car. Like, that's. That's. That's what I need. Donnie would be too expensive. I wouldn't even pay for Donnie. Jack ct. Nobody. No ringer. Staff is Me and Bernard. Actually, Jade, you're not even. Me and Bernard are going to figure out the show. We gonna come out there with, like, a mic. I'm gonna just. And the whole thing. I'm gonna do the whole thing. Might not even have sound.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, me.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no. Fuck. What? Way too. Your first black Bachelorette. Nigga, you minted in these streets. Me and Bernard are gonna do that whole thing. We gonna spend maybe 5,000 on the whole production. Then the rest of it, we going

[Rachel Lindsay]

to fucking keep it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Justin the man. I don't give a fuck what y' all talking about. And by the way, there is something I will say. I am a fan of Justin Bieber insofar as I really do like Justin Bieber's music when I hear it. I just can't think of ever, like, Justin Bieber's coming out and I'm gonna go listen to it. That's different than Justin Timberlake. Justin Timberlake. I was an actual fan for a while with Bieber, though. It was interesting watching him sit there as an older man, he's 32 now, and the younger Justin Bieber be like, on the screen.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It was really interesting to think of

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

everything that's happened since that kid wanted to get his start and where he is actually now. I thought that. That. That was kind of striking to see. But, you know, I'm a regular nigga that don't have a lot of shit. Look, actually do have a lot of shit to complain about. But this next thing is something that I. Is emblematic to me of how miserable people are on the Internet right now. Oh, Sabrina Carpenter.

[Donnie]

Yeah. She headlined on Friday night. The night before her performance featured cameo appearances from Susan Sarandon, Will Ferrell, and Sam Elliott. But there was a specific moment that she would later end up appearing apologizing for.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think I heard someone yodel. Is that what you're doing? I don't like it. That's. Your culture is yodeling. Is this Burning Man? What's going on? This is weird.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So apparently that's a cultural yodel. Rachel, did you see what it was like? Donnie, what's the yodel? What was the yodel there? So I don't want to step on anybody's culture in any way, shape or form. The yodel is. It's from.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's. I don't know sure if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's Zagruta. Zag. Zagruta.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. It's Zagruta culture. And it was. It's a yodel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's what the call is called.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's called a. Okay, so what? Guys, listen.

[Donnie]

It's Arabic culture.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's an Arabic cultural staple. You yodel, you make that sound when you're excited.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. It's like a celebration.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Celebration time. Now, how the fuck was she supposed to know that?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, and you've been to Coachella, too. So, like, it's actually amazing. It. It's a lot quieter than you think up there, which is why she could hear some of it. But from where she was on the stage about to play in the music. You have to set the scene she's about to play. It was a quiet moment. She hears that, she can't quite tell what it is, which she expresses later. But in that moment, I think people took it. We have more context hearing it from the Internet than you do in the moment of a performance.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm just. First of all, we should say that this has not been a huge deal. It was a thing that happened. She came out and went, my bad. And we're moving on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It was a big thing. Friday after Friday.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, yeah, I guess it was a big thing. I guess my. The whole conceit here is really interesting to me. Like, how do you know? Like, how are you supposed to know, particularly in this situation? There are other things where I could argue that maybe you should know that maybe you don't have enough penetration with the culture that you're around all the time. You're not taking an interest in that culture. If you live around black people all the time. And there are certain things about black people. If you live in a culture or a community with black people, you don't know these things. I'd be like, all right, you're not interested in that. And this is kind of emblematic of why so many streams get crossed in situations like this. But in this, there's just no way to know. She wasn't rude about it. So I'm like, we really do. We really do have to have just a smidge more of grace and patience with one another that it seems like we're ready to have right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. If she, in that moment had said, somebody said, what is that? And she says, they say my culture. And she. But she goes yodeling like she was confused. Like, yodeling is a part of your culture. If she had said, zagruda is a part of your culture and then spoke specifically to that. Been a totally different thing. But she seemed confused. Like, I've never heard yodeling as a part of somebody's culture. And so, you know, she was like, that's weird. I've never heard about it. But in her defense, even more so, when she did learn, she came out and she apologized. And if I was giving this apology a rating, I would give it like a seven.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You like that?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, I think that she said, listen, she explained the situation from the stage. She explained what it was, and she said, I was confused. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I could have handled it better. Now I know what it is, and I welcome those type of cheers from here on out. What more could she have said? She didn't try to defend it. Really? Yeah. And it was immediate.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. So we'll say this, though. It's interesting that the highest. That's like one of the highest ones ever. So. Like a white woman.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, okay. Well, you can make it that if you want to. I mean, well, it's.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Remember y' all remember Anton Shigur?

[Rachel Lindsay]

This is pretty.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Y' all remember Anton Shagur? Yo, who knows who Anton Chigur is on this podcast right now?

[Donnie]

I do.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

No, don't look it up, Donnie.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Don't look it up, Donnie said he don't look up, Donnie.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Do you know who that is?

[Donnie]

Yeah, I do.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Who is that, Donnie?

[Donnie]

He's the murderer with the haircut from no country for Old Man For Old

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

country for no Man. How we're doing. You guys realize we're doing a pop culture podcast. You'll know who that is.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know who that is. You always do this.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's a weird. You don't know who Anton.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, but no country for Old Man

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Javier with the haircut. He says. He says, I don't.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You have to have seen the movie.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Donnie. When did he. Donnie. When did he say that? He said that in the. When he was in the gas station. I'm not saying it. That's how it is. And that's why I was saying to you. I'm not saying that that's how it is. But you know what? I accept it. Let me tell you why I accept it because I don't want to get into a situation of defending white women. There's only one other white woman that I've ever defended.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And who's that?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That's Pamela Anderson. After I saw the sex tape, okay? I was like, okay. It was impressive to me.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay. If that's your standard. I mean, that's standard.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What happened? That's just how it is. I pulled another shagur. I sure. Twice. And look, I'm going to be real with you, man. I don't know what it is. I fuck with Sabrina Carpenter. I fuck with Sabrina Carpenter in a way. I haven't fucked with a white woman pop singer in a long time. I don't know why.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't either.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I like her. I like ass.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't think she's problematic.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

She. Is she problematic? She. She out there trying to push the limits and stuff. She's not problematic in a culturally problematic way. But I like her little spicy ass, man. I fuck with her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I like. I like her a lot. I like her music. I like her. She just seems very. I don't know, there's just like an ease about her. She doesn't take herself too seriously. Like, she acknowledges her faults. She pushes to your point. Like the Man Child and the COVID of the album, and a lot of people had an issue with it, and she was like, it is what it is.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Was not fucking with that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Aleyah didn't like it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

First of all, shout out to Alayah. We have a producer here. If you guys ever listened to the Midnight Boys, You've heard she used to be on Higher Learning as well. Alayah is my. So if you guys think that I am woke or Alaya is. Alaya is the one. Like, that's the one that. Hey, is this wrong? Is somebody gonna be mad? Alayah went into a whole breakdown of why that cover was problematic and all of that stuff, but all she did was turn me on to Sabrina Carpenter, and now I'm fucking with Sabrina Carpenter. You know, shout out to Zach Ruder, though. Shout out to everyone that's doing their calls everywhere. I with you too, but. Yeah, I thought it was. I thought it was cool. So other than that, nothing else from Coachella? What else you got? I know people that, like, had to go to Coachella, People that were like. Because on. On. On Saturday, Cleo Wade, Nicole Richie had a talk at a. At the First Congressional Baptist Church on Wilshire, and I went there and read. You know who's there?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Nina Westbrook was there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Nina Westbrook saw me nearly cry up there reading a poem in the church.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You wrote a poem?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I did not write the poem.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, what was this for? What was this about?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Cleo's got a book coming out. Cleo way has a book coming out.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So we went up and we talked about it. Nicole and Cleo were in conversation together. They should have a podcast. And then Cleo had asked us before that people that she knew to get up and read a poem. And I read a poem. But, like, I was talking to somebody on the way there, and they were talking about how they weren't going to Coachella. Look at them that night there in Coach. Coachella. This is. They couldn't. The call of Coachella was just a lot for people, like, in you and Layla saying the call of Coachella. They put the big C in the goddamn. And Rachel's put her mask on. Or her hat. Desert hat. Gotta go. I saw you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I text Kalika. I text Kalika and I go, I'm in Coachella.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Of course you are.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who was the friend I was with? Yeah, that was Natasha.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What does Natasha do? Who is that? I don't know her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I love that you're like, I got. I'm. You're supposed to know all my friends. Supposed to know who all? Natasha lives in New York.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. What'd she do?

[Rachel Lindsay]

She was on the Bachelor a couple of years. No, that's Sierra.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She was on the Bachelor a couple of years after me, and she was in New York. Like, she used to work in production, like Sony, Paramount, hbo. She went on the Bachelor a couple of years after, and we've been friends. She wasn't on my season, but we've been friends a couple years after me.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I watched the video.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She's great.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

She was trying to act like she was fake, trying to shake some ass in the video.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She wasn't acting like she was trying to. She was. She was. What are you doing?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

She didn't commit to it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, she was teasing. It was a tease.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, a tease.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, sex daddy.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

A father.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Anyways, that's whose birthday it was. That's who we went to celebrate.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, fantastic. Good for her. Everybody that's having. It's another weekend at Coachella next weekend, right? Or is it still two weekends?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, it's still two weekends.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Are you going back?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I am not.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You gonna be that nigga?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I'm not going back. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to see Bieber.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You want to see Bieber?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I saw Young Thug, too. That's who else I saw.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, Thug.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. He had a. He had a set last night.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

How was his set?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, the visuals looked a lot like Travis Scott, but they were really good. They were. I mean, Travis Scott has good visuals too, but he was good. He talked a lot to the audience, and it. And it made me laugh. I was like, no wonder you were talking all that stuff on the tapes that they leaked, because that's how he was in the audience. Like, he saw Teyana Taylor and he was like, tiana, man, I tried to get you to style me for this set. And he was like, but they kept telling me you were too busy or that you would call me back. And she's like, I didn't know that you hit me up. And he was like, well, your people told me you would call me back, and you did. He's having this conversation. They're talking on the thing, on the stage. On stage. But he was good. He was good. Good crowd. He was right before Carol G. I

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

argue that Teyana Taylor right now is one of the top five most beloved people in the town. Everyone loves Teanna. Everyone's happy for Teyana's success. Everyone loves Teona. Oh, speaking of. I'm doing. I'm doing standup.

[Rachel Lindsay]

When and where.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm doing standup on May 4, Ada Rodriguez, shout out to her. She asked me. She's doing, like, a little fake. Not celebrity, but, like, people that, you know, doing stand up for the first time as part of the Netflix of a joke thing. I got, like, three minutes, I think, where Are you? I don't know where it is yet.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, well I gotta be there.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, you got definitely gotta be there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We have to record it. Three minutes. Yeah, you've been working on it, you know, you know like the angle.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I know what I'm gonna do, but

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know cause three minutes goes quick.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It does. And I'm very long winded, so I might tell Ada I need five. Can I kinda have five minutes?

[Rachel Lindsay]

So that means you can have one long joke.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, yeah, cause like I have a whole like I don't have like jokes.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know how like Kill Tony does. You have one minute and you just say whatever you want.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Like if you do it like I'm not a stand up. So I really wouldn't know how to do that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You're a storyteller.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm a storyteller. I'm a storyteller. And the next story that we have is some

[Donnie]

African bombada. The hip hop pioneer who helped give the genre shape at house at street parties in the Bronx in the early 70s, but whose legacy was later tarnished by very widespread accusations of sexual abuse, died last week in Pennsylvania. He was 68 years old.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We should talk about the allegations, specifically 12 men. Did Donnie just say that? He might have just said that 12 men.

[Donnie]

I didn't.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. Had accused African Baba of sexually abusing them. And the range of this sexual abuse goes from one on ones they had with Africa Babata and then also accusations of being trafficked. And there were different ways that these men described being groomed by Afrika Babbada. There were different ways that these men described being enticed and manipulated by Africa Babada. And this is over a long time with different ages, some of them being really, really, really young.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean the allegations date back to the 70s. And you know, it's being alleged that he used his power and his position within the Zulu nation to, you know, bring in. I guess he was. The allegations are that this abuse occurred not just with him, but within his inner circle. It's also reported or alleged that they knew about it. And that's why he eventually lost his position within the Zulu nation because I guess I don't know if there was. He has never admitted that he did this, but I guess there was enough around it to where he had to be removed from his position. And so yeah, there's a couple of lawsuits in regard to this. 2021, I think the first allegations were like 10 years ago. But 2021, there was a lawsuit, a civil lawsuit. And then 2025, there was an actual judgment, but that's because he never responded to the lawsuit. So it was a default in regards to that specific suit.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Back when this first happened, and I didn't realize this, this only came up. What happened recently that somebody brought this up.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Diddy.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, no, that's what it was. It was Usher and Diddy. And somebody on Twitter was like, go back and look at, like, how KRS1 defended African Bombada at the time when some of these allegations were first coming out. And this was 2016. So we almost certainly would have covered this on TMZ. But I do not remember this video. I'm gonna play a little bit of KRS1 because there were various different esteemed hip hop luminaries that weighed in on the death of Afric. Now, but I'm gonna play you in 2016 what KRS1 said and just have to. In order to put this in context about African Bambada, then, Donnie.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I just think, for balance, that everything,

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

both perspectives should be given a respectful acknowledgment. Not against Africa Bamba. They're not Africa Bamba. Nobody's in touch. Nobody untouchable. No. Yes, you are. We have to learn that. No. We have to learn that. No, no. Our leadership has to be untouchable or they're not leaders. Okay. Before that, KRS1 talked about the fact that. Well, he goes on to talk about the fact that that is the way the Democrats are loyal to Joe Biden. That is the way the Republicans are loyal to Donald Trump, and that that is something that black people have to learn, that Hip hop has to learn that in order to indict African Bamba is to indict all of Hip Hop. And if we can't hold him sacred and untouchable, then we can't hold Hip Hop sacred and untouchable. And I think because, you know, Africa Bamba dies and Chuck D comes out, and Chuck D says that he wants to separate African Babata's life and allegations away from what he did for music. And he is rightfully excoriated for that and criticized for that. And I think he either deleted the tweet or he came back in a different tweet to kind of clarify what he meant. These two responses are profound to me. They're profound. First of all, there is no. You don't have to honor anyone.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's very true.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You don't have to honor anyone. And there are certainly things that one can do that makes them unworthy of being honored. There are things that Somebody can do. If you tell the story of hip hop, you can't tell it without African Babadi. That's true. Right. The question, though, is whether or not when he passes away, that you have to say nice things about him.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Correct.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

And I just. I think this is like, something that people struggle with a little bit more than, like. Than we talk about, than we discuss. We don't talk about how difficult it is for people to understand the horrors that someone can be responsible for and how that can negate all of the other things that they did, particularly when those things are artistic. I'm more infatuated with this idea than I am with almost anything else that we talk about culturally.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, we've talked about it before a lot in regards to certain people who have been accused of heinous acts. And we talked about it and we say, this won't be the last time that we've talked about it. And we talk about how you only have so many people who make it out, so many people who do great things, that when it feels like you take. When you learn something like this about them, it feels like it's like an indictment almost, I guess, on the culture, or you feel like you want to protect it because you don't have as many people who do these things, I guess, compared to white people. We've talked about this in that sense before. But I guess in this clip, if you listen to the whole thing, KRS1 says something like, well, there were four allegations. Like, I'm not gonna do this over four. Something like that, four people. And it just becomes to, well, then what is the boundary? Like, what is the standard? How are we measuring this? Is what I don't understand. What is too much? What is. Okay, I just don't understand that. I think that there is a way to. If you were telling the story of hip hop, if you wanted to talk about the history, you can mention Afrika Bambaata. But that doesn't mean that you have to respect him as he goes on to talk about this. Like, in this clip, he's talking about respect. Respect, Respect. Respect is something that is earned. You have to not center the person and their art. You have to make sure you're centering the victim. Those people who are, excuse me, impacted. And the ability to be able to disregard some. Someone's allegations, someone's pain, someone's hurt because you want to protect the art is wild to me. Like, that is a very dark thing. I need the people who have the desire to do that to really sit with that you want to minimize somebody's pain in order to protect art. I understand that it hurts if it's, excuse me, somebody that you have revered. I understand that that is hard for you to accept. But at the end of the day, there are people who are deeply impacted where this is affecting their lives because they were taken advantage of, they were harmed, they were mistreated. But you want us to remember the music they made or you want us to remember what they contributed to the culture and nothing else. Like there has to be a standard. And the standard is this is unacceptable.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So the cultural part of this is interesting because you can criticize African Bamba or not even criticize, you can rightfully villainize African Bamba for the things that. For the various allegations that have been leveled against him, you can, right? To me, culture comes in on the backside of it. Africa Bamba doing what he did has nothing to do with hip hop culture. The indictment of hip hop culture is the protection of him, correct? That happens after that. That's the indictment of the culture. KRS1 in that clip is saying that if you get at Africa Bombada, no, that you indict all of hip hop culture because he's that formative and important in hip hop. No, that's not true. This is one guy who existed and is very formative and is very important in hip hop. It's one guy, right? Doesn't represent all different types of breakdancing, B boying, graffiti, emceeing and DJing. Like the fact that he was accused of these terrible things, victimized people in these terrible ways, doesn't have to do at all with a culture of other people who are using this art form to express themselves. What is though, what is though a direct indictment of that culture is if that culture rallies around that guy in spite of things like this, then what you have are people. And not everyone has done this, by the way. There are people. I watched Immortal Technique talk about it and talk about how difficult it's been for him to be outspoken about this. If you then as a group and, and as a culture, right? If you then say, doesn't matter, we still have to exalt him. Now I'm looking at it and I'm going, okay, that is indicative to me of something that is wrong. That's a contagion that exists inside of that culture, right? Because the question very blankly, very plainly is like, like how much art do you have to produce in order for the privilege to rape a 9 year old? And I'm telling you guys, right, now, that. That is the. That is what essentially is being said. What essentially is being said is you can make art so good, you can make music so good, you can construct culture so well that that gives you the right to rape a child. And I'm sorry, Bombada is not the only one that we have this blind spot with. Yeah, right. And so sit with that. Like, sit with that type of thing. That's not me trying to be holier than thou or anything like that. But consider that. Consider the reality that, like, there's stuff that you could do and you could be so dope at it. So dope at it that that gives you the right to sneak into somebody's room, pull them into your room like a child, and then assault them, rape them.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I mean, it's just. Why is it not that you don't demand more from the people who you deem to be, you know, cultural leaders or to have impacted our culture in such a way? Why is it not. I. It's not that you automatically get respect, which is what I was saying. You have to earn it. Why is it not that you demand them to be better? That's. I guess that's just like, what. But I would love to hear the clip that you played. That's from, what, like 10 years ago, right?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

2016.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because he's talking about Hillary Clinton in this. I would love to hear if he has revisited this and changed it in light of Diddy, in light of Russell Simmons, in light of who else? R. Kelly. In light of some of these things. Not saying that these things hadn't happened before and there weren't rumblings about what these people did, but the fact that they have. It has come out and they have been held accountable in various ways. I'd be very curious to what you think now, because that mindset that you had in 2016, then if that's the case, then Diddy should never have been convicted. So I would be curious to hear. I don't know. I didn't research it. If he's said anything since this interview. In regard to the people who have such an impact on the culture and whether we should separate the art from their personal life.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Bambaata was sued civilly, and he did not show up for that suit in 2021, and default judgment was granted in that particular case. It's just important for how we want to be like, for how we want to be. It's important that when we talk about culture, remember that culture is not one man, one artist. It's not two artists. It's not three artists. Culture is something that's supposed to be definitive and edifying and expressive for a whole group of people. And inherent to culture is protection. To me, the number one existence of culture is the protection of the people that are part of that culture. Culture provides protection. It provides oneness. It provides tribe. And in tribe, when you come together with people, those numbers are supposed to be people that trust and understand your life experiences, where you come from and what it is that you are about. Culture is supposed to protect you. And the moment that it doesn't, it is useless. And all the conversations that we have, sometimes we go too far in trying to, you know, identify things that are hurtful and harmful. Completely get it. But the one thing that will never be under discussed is whether or not any specific culture is actually harming us or protecting us. And so some of the OGs disappointed me on this one.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who else says something?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I mean, it's a bunch of other people like we've, we've called out, but like, some of the OGs disappointed me on this one. And some of them just do not seem capable of being introspective about what hip hop is or don't seem capable of being truthful about some of this stuff. And look, once again, not wholer than now, because we've had the conversation before about R. Kelly. We've had the conversation before about Michael Jackson. We've had the conversation before about other people that have allegations swirling around them. So. And it's difficult to be consistent on it when these artists and these people have different meanings to different people. There are some people, we're just so connected as human beings to talent. You know, I'm going to try to be like in a way, talent is like the only thing that makes us human in a way.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What do you mean?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So like. And not because I believe that everyone is talented to give an example. You ever see that movie? No, you didn't see it. So there are two movies. There are movies called the Data, Earth Stood still, and there's one from the 50s, and it's about this alien lands on Earth, and when this alien comes to Earth, he brings this like gigantic destroyer with him. And the aliens looking around, exploring the Earth to decide whether or not he is going to have this thing destroy the Earth.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

They remade the movie like 2009, 2010, maybe 2011, something like that. Maybe even 2007, I can't remember. With Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves played the guy that was going out and exploring humanity. And they had the Big, tall alien thing that was going to destroy everyone. And in the Keanu Reeves character, he's, like, meeting people. He's connecting with people. He's touching people. He's doing all of this. He's trying to find out whether or not humanity is worth saving or worth annihilation. And he's talking to his doctor. He's getting all these numbers and figures, and the doctor is playing Wagner or Tchaikowski or something like that. He hears the music. He hears what human beings are capable of, the beauty that human beings can produce. Like, our ability to take our emotions and translate them through movement, through dance, through song. Our ability to, like, connect with things, build things. Our ability to harness the sky, to explore. There's a part of us that our ability to create almost justifies our existence. And that's what happened in that movie. So when people are exceptional at that, when they can do these things that people. Other people look at and they say, hey, that's amazing. Like, it makes you feel like you're more than just meat. It makes you feel. When you see someone do something and you're truly inspired, it makes you feel like you're more than just like a piece of meat hurling through space on a rock.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes. It feels purposeful. You feel connected to it. It feels otherworldly almost. It's like, especially if it's something that you can't do, you can't almost even fathom it. So, like, the way that that thing makes you feel, the way you feel connected to it, it feels very spiritual. And so, yeah, like, I understand what you're saying when you talk about humanity

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

and talent, but what we have to remember is almost anything that people are exalted for. And history teaches this lesson so clearly. Almost anything that people are exalted for can be weaponized for them to abuse you. Because there's another part of humanity, and that other part of humanity is the part that is not defined by talent, that's not defined by culture. The other part is defined by selfishness, obsession, the want to dominate people, and the just viciousness between people. And we can't let talent launder that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We can't.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Doesn't matter who it is. Where should we go next? How do we keep the show flowing? Because we gotta get into politics now. Rachel Rach's choice, Swalwell. Melania Trump as Christ.

[Rachel Lindsay]

If I could pick two out of the three, Two out of the three, I'd boot Melania. Let's. Let's go. Let's go. The congressman.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What's up? Swalwell. Take it away, Donnie. All right.

[Donnie]

Eric Swalwell, Democratic congressman from the Bay Area, said in a post on Sunday that he is suspending his campaign for California governor in the wake of allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in sexual misconduct with other women. That woman, the accuser, she worked for Swalwell. She said that she had sexual encounters with him while he was her boss and alleged that he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent. I'll read Swalwell's statement. He said, to my family, staff, friends and supporters, I'm deeply sorry for mistakes and judgment I've made in the past. I'll fight the serious false allegations that have been made, but that's my fight, not a campaign.

[Rachel Lindsay]

When you hear that statement, what did you take away from that?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I mean, what.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, particularly the last part. I'm deeply. Or. Well, the whole thing, really. I'm deeply sorry for mistakes and judgment I've made in my past.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, he's not going to come out and admit to all of the things that he did. What he's going to try to do is say that all of these things were consensual and because they were consensual, that they were actually mistakes and not violations. So in a way, it's like what he was going to say. Like, I've just read so many of them. I've seen so many of them. I've, like, seen when people were crafting them. I know the people that craft statements like this. That's par for course.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. I mean, he's admitting to having affairs, basically. He's admitting to. And there was something I read earlier where he was like, basically saying it came across that he has discussed. He hates that his wife has to go through these things because it almost feels like whatever has happened in the past, they've dealt with privately and now it's coming out publicly. But, you know. No, it's just. Well, it's just disappointing in the sense that, like, these are allegations. I'll say that. You know, I'll maintain that. But I guess what bothers me is the immediate blame shifting. The blame away from. I understand. You have to defend yourself. Right. He's not. He is not. He's saying that he did not do these things. He's alluding that it was that he had extramarital affairs, maybe, or did certain things towards his wife, but he's basically maintaining their consensual. But I guess the immediate. And I don't know if it was him who said this or someone from his staff. Cuz the staffers are asking for him to step down. You have people in Congress, in the Democratic Party asking for him to step down. Not just remove himself for the race, which he has, but also to step down from his position in Congress is the immediate. Well, the timing of this is very convenient. I don't like blame shifting. If you wanna maintain that you did not do this, fine. If you're saying you didn't do it, that's what you didn't do. But to say, well, that this is really convenient because I'm in the middle of a governor's race and I'm leading in this regard and basically the timing of it seems convenient since the race is coming up. I don't like that. I don't like shifting the blame of blaming it on. Instead of acknowledging maybe past indiscretions, maybe acknowledging that there was something, there's truth to what these women are claiming. You're saying, well, they're doing this because they want me out of the race. Not good. Well, and whether it's true, I don't like that.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not saying. I expect him to say what these women are saying is true. He's defending himself. But don't say, oh, it's because the Republicans want me out of this race cuz I'm doing so well. If you wanna say I stepped out on my wife, I've dealt like, fine. But don't make it seem like you're

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

above all of this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Do you understand? I don't like you blaming it on somebody else. Something happened. Whether it was consensual or not, something happened, don't blame it. Own up to whatever it is that you did to. Don't shift the blame.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So there are many different accounts by women. These accounts run the entire gamut of sexual misconduct. There are women that allege that they were in relationships that were consensual with him that ended up becoming non consensual or that he put them in positions where they couldn't consent. So a couple women said, yeah, I sent stuff back to him, yeah, this happened. This encounter might have been consensual. But then there was one time we went out, one woman alleges, and I woke up the next morning, I didn't know what happened, but it's clear that we had sex. So that's the case. Clear cut sexual assault. Either that happened in the way that she said it did or didn't. And Eric Swalwell is somebody who preys on people that much seems to be true. It seems that if you were a staffer of Eric Swalwell and you were an attractive woman, that he would harvest you, that there was a harvesting that he would do. As far as the young women that were around him, that in and of itself is enough to say that somebody should not have power and be in that type of position. Like, if you're around here trying to hit on and have sex with all the young women that are around you, that's like a whole thing. You're a politician and they work under you and whatever.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right. That's an indictment on you. That's an indictment on you not blaming it on the fact that they want you out of the race. I should also say that the district attorney is looking into one of these allegations, which doesn't necessarily prove that it happened, but it definitely makes it seem like it's not just some trivial thing. Either they're actually looking into an accusation or a couple that have been made Right.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Now, having said all of that, if he is going to go into that good night gently, then you just go away. Which he chose not to do. Which they never can do. Right. Because they want to have. They want to have a career outside of this and pass this. But you almost have to say it's politically motivated. That's like the one thing you have to say.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Whether it is or isn't. Don't use it as a distraction from the fact that you did something.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right. That's, I guess, what I don't like. Of course. Of course you want to do things, and maybe they did or didn't. But to say, like, hey, don't pay attention to what I'm being accused of. Pay attention to the fact that this is just the Republican Party trying to pull me out of the race because I'm a threat. No, like, that kind of attitude or ego to me is even more so an indictment on you because the fact that there's something right, whether it was consensual or not consensual. You knew that this was out here, yet you still were trying to run for governor, yet you still are maintaining your position in Congress. Like you thought you could. You were above it and you could get away with it. It's. This is an indictment on Eric Swalwell.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. The women say it wasn't condemned.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right, right, right. I'm just.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

But okay, so look, the reason why. I guess that's not jumping out at me because. And I'll make a mini announcement after this And I'm sure that the people that I'm going to make the announcement about aren't happy that it's coming in this context. But, like, that part of it assumes something that I think politicians assume all the time. That part assumes that the people that are inside of their political tent are so captured.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That they can do something like this. And then the explanation of, I'm just being harassed by the other side is going to work. And the reason why they assume that is because it does work. It does work. It is proven. We're gonna talk about Trump in a second. But it doesn't just work on the right. It works crazy on the left. Crazy on the left. Whatever that politician is that we're not allowed to criticize, we're not allowed to talk about because that criticism is too damaging. Some of this stuff does not rise to the level of sexual assault. But I'm talking about just overall being able to look at something that someone said or did or didn't do after they promised it and went like, hey, guys, just so you know, that is whack. Like, that thing is whack. And then having a group of people go, fuck you, you're with the Republicans. Fuck you, you're with the Democrats. Fuck you, you're not a part of our team winning. The reason why they continue to talk to people like that, that is because that is the language that they are taught to speak in. They're taught to speak in the language of, this isn't about what I did or didn't do. This is about the fact that the other side is mounting this challenge against me. And the only way to beat them is to go along with what the fuck I got popping. That's it. So you can interrogate me, what I've done, who I am, what I plan to do, or things I didn't follow through on, because that makes you the enemy. And so, like, when we throw the word cult around, there's a lot of cults. And in this one, he. In this case was saying that, hey, if you were a supporter of me before, you're not actually not a rational person that can look at swallow and go, this guy probably should not be the governor of California that I've captured you enough to where you'll go, I can't let them beat me. We just talked about this. I can't let them beat me. So I have to swallow what the fuck this guy's got going on. So I just see that all over the place, which is pause and separate. I'm doing something right now. I'm endorsing and will vote for Butch Ware for governor of California. When I saw this story and Butch and everyone else, I don't mean to connect you guys. Story surrounding sexual assault. When I saw this story, it became obvious to me that I need to politically and energetically support things and people who I believe are in energetic community with me. And the reality is, political machines aside, what I believe in is reflected in. In Butch Ware's platform. The way I look at the world is reflected in Butch Ware's platform. When I was at the. The. The get together at Cal State la, the movement, the energy inside of that, that's reflected in that platform. And not just a way of politics in a way of being that's probably my home. So there are a lot of people running for governor in California I will be endorsing and supporting. And if I have to, writing in Butch Ware for governor.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's big because you talk about not endorsing politicians in that way. So that's very big. I mean, like, you really believe in what Dr. Butch Ware.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm doing it right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She's fighting for. Well, I'm curious to see more of it, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to see more of that. And I want to see more of not excusing bad behavior of people with power or that you revere, as we talked about before. Because when I watched Eric Swalwell's attorney talk to cnn and the way he tried. The way he tried to excuse what Eric Swalwell is being accused of, the way he tried to insist, insinuate things, shout out to Alec, Alex, who was doing the questioning, because he challenged him every single way. He said, what does that mean? Are you saying that what these women are doing is. The attorney was basically, really trying to almost. What's the word? Basically making an indictment on the women rather than acknowledging their accusations, which I'm not expecting the attorney to do, but just the way that he was, I don't know, almost like demeaning the women, we gotta let that go. We gotta normalize the fact that when people are abused, they don't follow a certain playbook. You cannot expect the moment that it happens that they're gonna make the publicize the accusation. People are affected in different ways. People try cope in different ways. People tell their story in different ways. There is no playbook. And you cannot go after somebody because they don't do it the way that you think they should. They just don't. You never know what is going to trigger someone or make someone feel brave enough or empowered enough to finally tell their story. Because when you minimize their story, as that attorney tried to do, which I understand he is representing Eric Swalwell, it gives power to a person who is being accused of certain things, and it normalizes one side and minimizes the other.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Right. Eric Swalwell clearly is not in a position where he should be the governor of California or he should have people around him that he has power over. Right. Clearly.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because he abuses them.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Because he abuses them. He allegedly abuses them. We have to say allegedly here. Allegations in the last case, allegations in this one. The thing is, whether or not you believe them, I am not going to tell anyone what they should or should not believe. Like, when stuff is. When there are allegations made, the reality is either they happened or they didn't. And even when they did happen, it is still up to the individual to navigate for themselves how they want to respond to the person that the allegations are made against.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So, like, it's up to people to. To. To respond in that sense for themselves. What is clear, though, is whether it's honoring someone or having political office and political power, there are things you can do that make you not qualified for that, not worthy of that. So now it's up to Eric Swalwell and his legal team to go out and prove that none of this stuff happened. And it's going to be up to the other side to prove that it did, in fact, happen. Because I'm thinking that there probably going to be civil suits. In the situations where there can be civil suits, there's probably going to be, like you just said, there's an actual criminal case that is now bubbling.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They're investigating.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Investigating it. So there's probably going to be ramifications that come on the other side of this. And there's a. I think there's a. Look this up for me. There's Republican congressmen down in Texas, I think, who they're also. People are calling to step down because of allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment been made against him. All right, so, like, this is. It's, you know, not a partisan issue. It's an issue of power and exploitation.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Y.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, You. You get his name? Jake?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, Jay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Didn't get his name. It's okay. All right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Tony Gonzalez.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Tony Gonzalez. Tony Gonzalez, right. So this is something that we're talking about in culture, and people had thought that the battle against sexual assault and trying to protect people, women, young women, men, young boys, people thought that that battle was over. It's clearly not. It is something that society has always contended with, and we will continue to contend with it as long as we try to protect people from being abused by power. All right, now, Trump has made an announcement. I made an announcement about my support for Butch Ware for governor, and Trump has finally made the announcement that I thought I am wrong. I am so wrong on this podcast. Like, a lot of times, I'm wrong a lot. But this is the wrongest I've ever been.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Because Trump made an announcement that I was expecting him to make for a long time.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

And it did not get greeted with the reaction that I thought it would. Yeah.

[Donnie]

Let's give some backstory. Trump posted a lengthy message attacking the Pope, calling him specifically weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy. And this is after criticism came from the Pope, who publicly condemned the conflict in Iran. Now, after he attacked the Pope, Trump posted this picture of himself. It's an AI generated picture of himself as it looks like he's Jesus appearing to heal somebody. And in a rare move, deleted the post. He reversed.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So look, you guys, it was just a matter of time before Trump, before Trump took the feedback from his group, his people, his cult, and made the statement that he is God. They treat him like God.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They treat him like God.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

They treat him like God. How does. Should I say, the MAGA cohort treat Trump like God number one? Everything that Donald Trump does is mysterious to us but will work out in the end. That's faith. That's religion. That's God, Right? So doesn't matter. Trump come out and do something that obviously doesn't make any sense, but in the end, it will make totally sense. God, Deep devotion and loyalty to not just Donald Trump, but his entire family. God. Think about that. We don't just love God. We love anyone that's close to God. We love Mary, God's mama. Jesus is mama. Jesus is God's son. We love the son and the Father. We love God's friends. All of God's friends. We love them all. The apostles, all of everyone that God touched. Everyone. Everyone around God is like, if the closer you are to God, the more we love you. Maga, everyone around God, they love him. They love fucking Donald Trump Jr. One of the most unlovable people in the entire world. They got to love them. Why God, God's boy, loves every single one of them, right? All of that. You have the unyielding, undying faith they buy and do and indulge into whatever God says. God told us Sunday's a Holy day. It's the holy day. God tells you what kind of food to eat. You eat it. Trump gives you shoes. Trump give you coin. Trump give you a mean coin. Trump give you a brand. Everything that he touches is holy to his people. They were already worshiping him. And so he said, oh, you know what? I'm being worshiped to this degree. I'm God. This to me was a natural thing that was going to happen. And they actually was like, nah, that's too far. It's not his fault. You to me have been worshiping him to such a degree that at some point he was going to be like, they must be right. I must be the Christ child. And he posted this meme and the Republicans actually went, ah, it's a little too far. Which was surprising to me. It was surprising to me to see all of these people that have eaten a gruel, that have believed the lies, like for example, like the big lie about the election. That's an obvious lie. That's an obvious lie. Like a 24 karat gold minted lie. But they're like, ah, God said it, so it must be true. They invent reasons that the shit must have happened.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They do.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So like to me, to see everybody go, I can't believe the President would do this. And I can't believe he would. Why wouldn't you believe it? You, there's nothing that you've ever held him accountable on, nothing that you've ever investigated him on. Some of you, the ones that have investigated him on those type of things have been what? Cast out. Cast out of heaven like the rest of the angels. All of these people, Tucker, Candace, Alex, Cast out. He cast them out. He cast them out via True Social. They got cast out. They got cast out. Now they're in hell out of the favor of God. But he did this. And now they're like, how could he, nigga, how could you? You made him do this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that. Well, this is the line. This is the line, right? They don't see themselves as worshiping him like a God. They're just respecting their president. They're just respecting the administration. They believe. Even though they believe he will deliver them from everything, right? He will deliver them from, you know, their. Whatever they're struggling with, whether it's money, whether it's health, whether it's their business, whatever it may be, he will deliver them. They have that much faith. They believe in him right? All the way up until. But you can't call him that. This is clearly the line. Even though so, so this is the boundary, right? Because what's going to happen? They condemn him for all this, right? They're like, that was just a little too much, right? He deletes it. He was just kidding. That's not what he meant. Matter of fact, he's already come out with an excuse about it. They will take this. They will believe in it. You guys are exaggerating. You guys. He does not believe in God. He believes in God. He doesn't believe he is a God. That's why he can tell you his favorite Bible verse. That's why when he holds the Bible for a photo op, he holds it upright instead of upside down. Because he doesn't believe he is a God. He believes in God. He was just kidding. He was just kidding. And as quickly as that went down, they will forget this happened.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

This is what Trump had to say.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Mr. President, did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, it wasn't depicted. It was me. I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross. As a Red Cross worker there, which we support.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Let me look at the picture again.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Only the fake news could come up with that one. So there's no reason to look at the picture.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Now I gotta look at the picture again. I gotta look at the picture again.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

There's no reason to look at the. You know what happened. See, like there, there's no reason to. There's no reason to look at the picture. You know what happened. Cut that shit off. There's no. There's no reason to look at the picture again. Like, you know, like, you know what happened.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Wait, what the fuck is right above his head? What's that?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So they put a demon in there. No, the original picture has no demon. That one has a demon.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no, no. But the trouble. They put a demon. They took that picture and there's a. For some reason, Trump put a demon in there. There's a demon.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So how do you know this isn't the original one?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Because this is what's on Twitter. It was reported that this was posted by some guy named Nick something. Trump reposted it, but it looks like when the White House reposted it, that they put a demon in it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Why would they do that?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I do not know.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's all I keep looking at. Because. Let me look at the picture. So. So I apologize. Yeah, that's too far. I had to look at the picture because I had to understand how he's reasoning the Red Cross. Because first off, he's that? I thought it was me being depicted as a doctor. You're not a doctor. So that's problem number one. Two, what doctor dresses like this? That's Jesus, of course. Dr. Jesus, of course. What doctor wears the white. I don't even know what you call this cloak with the red over it with. And what is in the hand. That's the light. Is that medicine? Is that a vaccine?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, no, that is.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's Ivermectin. That's the. That's where he's putting the ivor. The ivermectin is the light. He's putting the ivermectin on that guy right there, the horse tranquilizer. The guy's Joe Rogan.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And you know why this will resonate? Because. Because, you know, Trump said, he's healing, right? Look who is healing.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Who's healing?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Ain't none of us in it. Oh, whites. Oh, all whites.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That's a good call, Rach.

[Rachel Lindsay]

All whites. This is.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You know, this reminds me of a story from Baton Rouge about the line.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

This could be the moment for them that this happened in Baton Rouge. I've ever told you a story about Leroy. I never told you a story. So I'm not going to name the other person in this. But there was a notorious story in Baton Rouge, okay? There was a guy in Baton Rouge that in Guardia was like, our gay guy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, There was only one.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, there were many gay guys, but there was one guy who had the courage to be out in 1995. And I'm not gonna bullshit you. This was one of the coolest niggas in the world, man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I believe it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I'm just saying, like, he was legitimately. He could dance, he could fight, he could hoop, he could do all. It was, like, confusing to a lot of niggas in the neighborhood because we had an idea of what a gay man was, and he just thwarted that idea. Shout out to him because he'll beat your motherfucking ass. He'll fuck you over. In basketball, in the parties he was dancing, everybody was. He was like. And so people would just be like. It would be even in that. Sometimes you will see niggas. Niggas being, man, that nigga cool, man. Cool. And, like, guys from other areas of town be like, hey, that dude is a blah, blah, blah. Be like, nah, that's. That's cool as, nigga. Okay, so something happened one day in the bathroom. That guy gave another guy a blowjob, and they were caught in the bathroom. They were caught in the bathroom. Now, the guy I'm talking about who was the giver of the blowjob was. Was out and gay. So this is not a big deal for him. You know, he does get blow jobs. It's the thing. Whatever. Come on, everybody. Blowjob here, blowjob there. Whatever. Whatever happens. The other guy, though, was receiving the blowjob. And I remember being in school, okay, we're in school and we're talking, and I'm talking to him. I'm like, yeah, you're gay. He goes, what? I'm like, you had gay sex. You had sex with a guy? And he was like, shit, a mouth is a mouth. I was like, that might be the case, but the mouth that you were with was on a guy. I'm not trying to, like, I wasn't trying to get at him. I was just saying, hey. I was trying to.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You just said, hey, you're gay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

He had sex with a man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, but why were you. Why did you walk up to him and say that?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That's not what happened. We were in the class after it had all blown over and we were talking about it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay, I'm glad you had the context, but y' all see what I'm saying, right? I'm so glad I said that.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You made it seem like you just walked up and was like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We were in class and we were talking about it and he was. He was basically making it. He was basically saying, a mouth is a mouth. Now, look, I'm 15 at this time. I'm not, like, in any way evolved. I'm like going, no. Like, I'm trying to make him say, you had a same sex encounter. You're fluid, you're gay, you're whatever. And the whole deal. I remember in that situation, in that thing, watching him come to terms with the fact that he had actually had sex with a guy. He didn't look at it as having sex with a guy, but he had had sex with a guy. And I wasn't, like, being mean about it. I wasn't being anything. I just, in my mind, my analytical, logical mind, couldn't see how he didn't get the fact that he had had sex with a guy. Like, I was like, yo, you had sex with a guy. Like, you did some gay shit. You're gay. Right? Like, whatever. Maybe that's too. Maybe that wasn't quite evolved with me.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You've explained it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

But I'm saying all this to say that, like, this reminds me of this Trump shit. This remind him having a realization right there. He was like, he wasn't going to fight the guy because the guy will beat his motherfucking ass. Ass. Okay? This nigga had hands like crazy, Would beat his motherfucking ass. But I just remember. I just remember having this conversation and watching him realize that he got up to the line and then he crossed it. This is what happened with the Trump thing. This was the blowjob in the bathroom line where they got up to the line not realizing it, and then went over it. What a time. What a time in Baton Rouge at that time. Do you know? It was like. It was just such an interesting time to be in Gardea, to be around to watch people, to watch out. Cause a lot of niggas was going to jail, and then they would go to jail and they would do stuff in jail and they would come home and we hadn't done any of this stuff. So we would be like. We would be like, we. We weren't experienced in this way.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

And so we. We would. They would. They would say stuff about stuff and we'd be like, oh, okay. Well, I. I didn't know that that was permitted, you know, whatever you do. Anyway, they reminded me of that story. Gucci Mane has finally spoken on the situation with him and Poochaisi. Donnie.

[Donnie]

Yeah. This is a week after the report that he was allegedly kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and robbed by Push Ice. Duchimain responded with a new track called Crash Dummy, produced by Zaytoven. You guys listen to it and thoughts.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Love Zaytoven.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You like Zaytoven?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. Fucking, man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I like the track. Yeah, you like it?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't know if it's to be liked.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay. What is it? To be consumed. So you understand where he's coming from, what his position is.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't know that Gucci's gonna do very many interviews on this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So this is. Yeah, this is kind of taking it

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

off of his chest. Yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, I. I did. When we talked about this at first, did you say. You said that you thought Gucci wouldn't testify or really be a part of what was. What was going on?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't know if I said that. I said it would be interesting if he. It would be interesting if he did.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, from. And so when you listen to this diss track, Crash Dummy, don't you feel like he. He will.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, because the reading that I've done, he wrote a statement, so he's cooperating with law enforcement. There's interviews with the FBI that are upcoming. And it seems to me that the FBI thinks that Gucci is going to be cooperative in those. In those interviews as well. According to reporting I read, he was interviewed by the police. He talked to police. One of his security, apparently unbeknownst to the alleged assailants in this case was police. And when the police got there, Gucci ended up talking to him. So that's what, that's what the reporting says.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, I feel like this happened back in January. It came out this month or maybe end of March. I don't know. Once it came out later, I feel like he was already cooperating. Like, I feel like he was already a part of it. I feel like they were able to have these indictments against the people that are alleged to be involved because he was cooperating. And the fact that he's putting out this diss track now, he's all but saying, like, yeah, without calling him by name, because we should. He does not say his name, but he is referencing exactly what was alleged to have happened in Dallas with the robbery and the kidnapping. So it seems to me Gucci Mane is fully on board.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and good for him.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And even saying, and you're still signed to me.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So, yeah, he's the victim of a problem.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You did all that and you're still signing me.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Hip hop has responded. Well, not all of hip hop. Some people in hip hop have responded. It's interesting the way the response has been on this. Finesse2times.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Or is it predictable?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Finesse2times responded. Finesse2times responded. Play a little bit of what he had to say anyway, man. What's up with Gucci mime, man? Hey, Gucci walk, man. I ain't going to lie, bro. I ain't going to lie, bro. I ain't f to sit here and lie, bro. I'm hurt by this. I'm up about this. I'm realized up about this. He realized just the whole culture up. You realize hurt my feelings, fool. You realize, hurt my feelings, fool. You a grown ass man, bro, and you got a whole lot of money. What the. You worry about a chain in the ring and shit for her? I know why Shiesty robbed you if he did. Cause he ain't think you were gonna tell on him, fool. He thought you were street like I did. He didn't think you were gonna put the police on him, fool. You a green ass walk.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm sick. I'm sick of the excuses.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What excuses?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I feel like that's been a Theme of the podcast today, right? We talk about Africa Bombada, and we see people try to reason or excuse what he did in the name of something else. We talk about Trump and his cult following. Trump called himself Jesus and then basically took it down, not making an excuse. It was this Eric Swalwell, his attorney, trying to excuse certain things through, oh, it's not this. It's because they want this to happen or they want you to see this. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of people. Why can't we just say, hold people accountable for what we did? Why are we making excuses? It is the excuses that we keep make, which is why this behavior continues to happen. Because you try to ignore it, you try to look past it, you try to reason it for whatever it may be. Why can't people just be held accountable for what they do? Or why can't you just let things play out as they should to determine what. Where fault may land? I am tired of people excusing it, of there being this code or this playbook for this, of this is the way things have to be in order for you to feel better about someone, feel good about who it is that you support or who you have revered. I'm sick of it. That's literally been the theme of this podcast. I'm also not listening to anybody who says that they eat the noodles with no package.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Do you know why I respect street niggas? Raised around a lot of them. Everybody in the family was a street nigga. Besides that, everyone I was raised by legitimately the only non street nigga in my entire family, and he, in ways could be viewed and looked at as sort of a street nigga. Because there's this weird intersection between street niggas and country niggas that it's almost the same thing. Because you could be like dad lived by the way of the gun, that would not talk to the police in any way, shape or form, wouldn't talk to the police in no way. Right? Was wary of the police. I think a lot of people in the community where I'm from are wary of the police. I think not talking to the police for some people is this omerta that exists from a cold or a sense of morality. And for other people, it comes from a genuine distrust of law enforcement. The law enforcement that prays on their communities, they just don't. They want to keep the police out of things in hopes that we can deal with them, because involving law enforcement normally makes everything worse. But I was literally raised by the only Non street nigga. Uncle David, Uncle Mark, Uncle Ray. Like all of these guys, what you would consider straight up street niggas. The reason why I respect street niggas is because I realize we were talking about earlier. I realize it's a religion and I respect other people's religions whether or not I agree with those religions or not. The only time I don't respect other people's religions is if I feel like those religions or belief structures or systems are detrimental to either me or people who I care about. When you hear finesse talk about Gucci, Gucci is now a heretic to him. Gucci hasn't just rejected, like a code. He's rejected legitimately the orienting principle of this guy's life. And this orienting principle has been, like, commodified to a degree by hip hop. Now you hear niggas that are YouTubers and stuff like that talking about this ain't street, talk about this snitch, talk about all of this stuff. And it's like the cat's completely out of the bag now. But, like, for all of the time that Gucci made his public Persona, made his public, Gucci has a song where he's like, my best friend wrote a statement on me. Like, part of the mystification of the streets is that there's a morality to this that exists amongst these guys. When you said the word morality earlier, it dinged with me because what we're talking about is actually dueling moralities. Everyone thinks that they're moral. Everybody in this situation thinks that they're moral. Like, we would look at it as regular non street people as the moral thing to do is to, like, in a situation like this, cooperate with law enforcement or report the crime. Something happened to you. Justice is for the harmony of society, right? Not for revenge or get back. So even though the police are all fucked up and we get that and we understand that, we understand what comes with that. Like, you can't have people running around who will revolve, resolve business disputes with the gun. That does not make for a polite society, that has made for a society that we can all trust. So we do what we got to do, even if we hold our nose while we do it. The morality that he's talking about is a morality that says you never involve law enforcement in the. In a dispute. The dispute is resolved through either might or cunning. And, you know, some of these things are handed down from the mafia. And the way that the mafia was able to, you know, sort of construct rules of the streets and Their organization and all of that stuff to insulate them from regular society so that they could have their own economy that existed, so that they could have their own set of morals and codes existed. Where, like, a guy crosses you, you gotta kill that guy. All of that stuff. What's interesting now is what's happening is this stuff is blending for many reasons. Number one, it's blending because it's being made so consumable. On the Internet, everybody is discussing this type of shit. People that, you know in the neighborhood, when stuff like this would happen, you would talk about it, but, like, you wouldn't, like, talk about it. There was nobody with a microphone at the end of the block that just had a conversation about it. So everybody. Everyone could hear about it, right? So that's one thing. And another thing is these guys are getting older. And when these guys get older, the religion of the streets. I'm sorry, it fucking looks crazy. If you, like, 57 years old, it just does. I mean, Gucci, not 57, but the religion of the streets, that's a young man's game. It looks crazy. It looks crazy if you 57 years old, if you got kids in college, if you got a mortgage, if you got all of that stuff. And to all of my street niggas out there that's going to hear this and be. I'm sorry, but the older you get, the crazier that fucking shit looks. And people in the past did not get a chance to see that. They didn't get a chance to necessarily see somebody who was 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, who couldn't lead the streets alone. They saw it in their family sometimes, but they didn't get a chance to see that. And when people see that, they honestly do not want to be that. They don't. They don't want to be that. They want to be Jay Z, Someone who had a street education that then took that education and then turned into something else. They want to be. Nah. They want to be people who don't, like, turn their nose up at what made them, but then get to a point to where they're not. They don't have to exact revenge for personal slights and situations like that. And so, you know, it'll be interesting to see. I said this before Gucci, who is legitimately one of the architects of just an incredible street ministry, which is, you know, trap. You know what I'm saying? Like a. He's an architect of one of the most enduring street ministries that has a Kind of surface in American culture. Trap music. Gucci is on the Mount Rushmore. That be interesting to see how people respond to the fact that he obviously don't give a about that no more.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, like, yeah, like Gucci has a history of legal issues, right? So is it even that he doesn't give a fuck about it? Or maybe that he has learned that. What's the benefit in all of that? And I guess that's what I would ask, like a finesse. It's okay, he's younger. You talking about you making the excuse for him. He doesn't know any better. But what benefit, if you love this, goes back to like the community? When we were talking about Africa, Bombada. If we're talking about culture, if we're talking about community, it's talking about a love that you have for the people that exist inside of it. You want to see them thrive, you want to see them live, you want to see them be. If you protect a mentality like this, what is the benefit for it? So when I see a finesse, say, like, he don't know any better. He's 26. Well, maybe he should, right? And I get like, like you said, we come from different worlds, you know, so. So I get that. I don't subscribe to, to, to the religion, to use your words, that they might subscribe to. But it's like, what really? Like, ask yourself that question. How does this benefit somebody who just got out of prison to do this? How does it benefit to protect him or Gucci to turn the other way? Or does it allow Apushaisi to keep doing this and think that you will continue to be. To get away with it so you can continue down this road? This road is going to lead to a bad place. So if we want to protect the, if we want to see them thrive, then we gotta learn that this isn't the way to do it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not, I know you're not saying,

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

not in any way disagreeing, but I'm saying, let me give you an example of something. Did you get in fights in high school?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I've been in a couple. Not in high school. High school, college.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You told me about the fight that happened. Okay, all right, so imagine this. So, you know, for whatever reason, there were a couple of times where you just, you knew wasn't no way around it. You used to, you was going to be in this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You had to go through it, you

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

had to do it, you had to, you had to fight. Sometimes the fights are spontaneous. Basketball court. Never forget Basketball court. Like, we playing. Nigga goes. Homeboy went, oh. He laughed. I was like, well, that's not. Now we have to fight some fight. Like, we was in a place. It was in Mayfair. It was a place, and we didn't know each other. Called him a. And I was like, he's a fight. I was like, hey, it makes no sense that he's gonna fight you. So just like, let's just have the fight. Let's have the fight. We can get back to the game because it's gonna. We about to fight. This nigga is not the type of nigga to turn anything down. He never turned anything down in life. He's about to fight. You cool. But sometimes, like, you know, right? Somebody's saying, shit, man, I'm catch this nigga, Van. I'm gonna catch this nigga, whoever. So one time, like, I knew I was gonna have a fight the whole day. Middle school, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know after football practice, there's going to be a fight. Me and this guy, we going at it. The way that it goes, he knows it, too. There's an understood. Like, there's a bargain, or. It's almost like a understanding. Whatever it is, there's a. We know that we're going to fight, and we know that we're gonna go somewhere to fight where nobody can see us, right? We not gonna fight in the middle of the school. We're not gonna fight at third period. We're not gonna fight at lunch. Ain't nobody trying to get suspended. We. We want to fight. We still want to play, all of that stuff. We gonna fight. We're gonna go somewhere. We gonna handle this. We gonna come back out. If he brings the principal with him or if he brings a coach with him, and he looks at me and goes, van has been threatening me all day long. And now we're here and we're about to fight. He's more than a coward. It's not. If he backed down when we got to fight, niggas would be like, you a hoe. Like, niggas, you straight. You a hoe. You're like. And until you prove you're not a hoe, sometimes you have to go and escalate to prove that you wasn't a hoe. But we didn't see niggas get hoed before. But see, if you go grab somebody and come and goes, he's there. Don't have to be the police. You're more than a coward now. People might not even fucking talk to you anymore. Now you're way outside of the thing. Because this doesn't make any sense. It makes sense when you're 15. It doesn't make sense when you're 45. It might make sense when you're 25, but it doesn't make sense when you're 55. It doesn't make sense to me when you're 35. To me, it doesn't make sense. The moment you realize that you live a longer, healthier, happier life with grandchildren, with. With. With bounty, with physical health, with mental health, leaving that alone. The moment you realize that it doesn't make any sense to do it anymore. The question is, when do you realize it? Because it is difficult, really difficult to realize it. If you think it's keeping you safe, if you think the fact that nobody will rat on you, if you think the gun, if you think the hiding out, if you think all of these things actually in some way keep you safe, it's difficult to divorce away from them. Because I'm telling you, like, niggas in these neighborhoods, they might not be scared of each other. They scared of the white man. Like, that is actually like turning the key and unlocking the demon and bringing it. They might not be scared of each other. You hear it in the songs like, hey, you see the police run? Like, run, get the fuck out the way of the police. So a lot of times I understand the threshold that they have to cross to get that all of that street shit is not the way to go about it. But God damn the systems that are so sturdy in these places and the cultural reinforcement that they get, a lot of people get. It's solid, man. It's like. It's solid. And whereas I know that it doesn't make any sense, it's not that I have a soft spot for it. It's just like, Baton Rouge was so fucked up. You get it? It's not like you. To me, all it ever did was ruin lives like some of the most brilliant, beautiful, talented brothers that I didn't know. I just got to a point, nigga started dying, and I was like, yo, that can't be for me. Like, if I'm a hoe, I'm a hoe. I just. I can't do that. Like, I don't want to. If I have to go somewhere where that's gonna happen, I'm not into it. I just can't. And I'll go to Spaceport. I used to go to Spaceport to play video game. Cortana Mall, shout out to all my niggas at Spaceport. Irvin, Kevin, Trey playing Marvel versus Capcom too. And we had a fight there. We had a rival.

[Rachel Lindsay]

At what age, nigga?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

This is like we in our 20s at this point.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, man.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

All right. There was a Spaceport. Ask if y' all don't believe me. No, we ask Trey. Charles got beat up outside of Spaceport. This must have been 2001 or two. Trey and Charles had a beef. This is over. Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Charles, they were supposed to fight at Spaceport Cortana Mall. And Charles came, he had a box of Chinese food. And Trey and Charles face off. And Trey's nigga just went hit Charles. Chinese food everywhere. Fight at Spaceport over the game. Fighting Spaceport.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Cortana Mall, Baton Rouge. You ever been?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, I haven't. It's the first time you've mentioned Cortana Mall.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Spaceport Cortana Mall.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's what the whole thing is called.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, Spaceport was an arcade that existed inside of Cortana Mall.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

And it had all the games. We used to have lock ins there. I was like maybe like 22. We'd stay there all night long.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You were going to lock ins at 22? They expire after high school.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's not true.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Who was hosting it?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So Spaceport would have the lock ins. Ok, we have a lock in the

[Rachel Lindsay]

arcade would host their own lock ins?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yes.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I've never.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We would play video games at the lock in all night long. Play Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Will you play Dance Dance Revolution?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes, I'm familiar with that.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay. We played Marvel vs. Capcom 2. We played dance Dance Revolution. But really it was Marvel versus Capcom 2. And you know what we did at the lock ins?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Show me. Give us a little taste of Dance Dance Revolution.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I never played Dance Dance Revolution. Richard Bentley. Not Richard Bentley, Smith. Richard Brumley from McKinley High. White boy. He was the best at dance dance. I never played it. The only game I played was Marvel versus Capcom 2. I might have been 21. I might have been 20. 21. 20.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Grow. You could drink. Yeah, we should not. No, that's not a lock in. Okay, but I can't drink at the lock in. What else you gonna do in Baton Rouge?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We did go do it. We drank at the lock ins. Cortana's tore down now. But we drank at the lock ins. But they had. You know what else we would have? We would have Dragon Ball Z. We'd take over the TVs that they had in Cortana and we put Dragon Ball Z up there. We had the Frieza Saga up there. We watched the Frieza Saga and then we watched Majin Buu. We watched Dragon Ball Z at the lock ins at night while we played the game. When I tell you. This is so funny. Geno used to the play approved crew was like embarrassed about this area in my life. The play approved crew. Geno one time pulled me to the side. Geno was like, hey, nigga, look about this fucking arcade, bruh. The fuck is up with this arcade? You can't get no money at the arcade. Ain't no bitches at the arcade. While you all was hanging out at the arcade. I love the fucking video game.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, he shouldn't have done that. But the. But the line. What line you crossed, the lock in was the line.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The lock in at 22. There's nothing wrong with the arcade. But the lock in was where you just went a little too far.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So the lock in is the line. I can get that. I can understand.

[Rachel Lindsay]

At 22.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

At 22, I had been to a

[Rachel Lindsay]

lock in since I was like 14.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, well, that's you. And we had a love for the game. I traveled around for the game. I went to the Texas Showdown in Houston. Actually. I was actually, at one point, I took third in the Marvel vs Capcom tournament in Louisiana. I was the basically almost. I got third in that tournament. That doesn't really mean that I was the third best player, but I got third in the tournament. Who did you use? I use. So there's a bunch of different teams I would use.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thank you for that question.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, so the. I. This is why are street. So see what I'm saying? Because. Let me tell you why. See this? We're getting to the bottom of it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I said there was a line. No, no, no, no. The line was the lock in. Nobody cares that you went to the arcade.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

The reason why. And street because you. Donnie, that laugh. Donnie. Hold on for a second. Donnie. That laugh, though. That laugh is fucked up. That laugh is why niggas are street.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Niggas. Donnie thought his mic was off.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

You see what I'm saying? That laugh is why turn to the streets, right? Because the reality of the situation is if a was riding around Baton Rouge and a Corvette, had dope, had money, had hoes, had all of this, that would have been fly. They got a lock in. Donnie laughs. It's unfair.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's not a lock in. It's crazy.

[Donnie]

It's the age at the lock in. Because I'm wondering, how old are the other people who are Locked in with this 22 year old man.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

They're the same age. Don't play with me. So like, like we had. Kevin was older than me. So I at the. Kevin was like 25. Kevin was older than me. Irvin and Trey were a little younger. The crew was me, Irvin, Trey, Charles was in the crew at first, but then Charles, we. We. Charles became our enemy. But like, like Charles was the best player in. In the entire thing. Irving and then Dakota. Shout out to Dakota. Dakota. End up Demetrius and Dakota. Demetrius, Dakota. This was the spaceport. La familia. That's what Geno named us. Yeah, yeah, we knew the owners. Yeah, we knew the owners of the spaceport. We knew the nigga named Reggie. He ran the spaceport. So by the way, my team so we can move on. Bernard. My team was either Magneto, Cable, Storm. Sometimes I would go Magneto, Cable, Psylocke. Sometimes I'll go Magneto, Storm, Sidelock. Every team had Magneto. Some teams featured cable Sentinel became a character that people use after the time. But yeah, like Magneto and Storm. I'm a rushdown player. I like to do like brilliant combos and stuff like that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So it was an all boys lock

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

in N. What the fuck you think? Yeah, it's like wasn't no girls and there was one girl in there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, like normally the lock ins are co ed but when you started describing what was on the TV and played, I'm like, okay. This was just like for like the boy. The gamers, the main gamers.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Okay, we can move off this now. Cause this y'. All. It's funny. Cause y' all dissed the lock in. But it kept me off this. These niggas could have been on the streets. But that's cool. It's been.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We love that you were in the arcade. Baton Rouge, right? It's the lock in.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's Baton Rouge, right? It's Baton Rouge.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Nobody cares. You ain't the space board.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So like space port. It's space support is what it's called

[Rachel Lindsay]

at the Cortana Mall.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

At the Cortana Mall in Baton Rouge. Cortana Mall, Spaceport. Rest in peace. So last thing I'll say is when we went out of town. Cause we did go out of town as a crew. We went out of town. We went to New Orleans to play tournaments. We went to Houston to play tournaments.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's great.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We did go out of town. We definitely talked to girls. We got at Women in New Orleans. I remember this one girl from New Orleans was like, she Looked at us and she went, y' all niggas too cute to be some game heads. I gotta go. Y' all need to stop this. I put my whole team on canes. They had never had canes before. The people from New Orleans had never had canes. Ricky used to use black heart. Like, whatever.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Fuck all this.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

But y' all show me something, though. Y' all show me why niggas turn to the streets with the way that y' all reacted.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's a line.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Surprised at you, Jade?

[Rachel Lindsay]

No. Cause I was. Look, I'm a gamer, too, but I be on Monopoly, so I'd be on the board games.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Oh, that's not no gamer.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes, it is. They have conventions and everything. I have a friend who's, like, deep into it. That's. Those are gamers.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Hey, Mario. Gamer. That's straight. I'm not dissing what nobody else is into and stuff like that. I did one time diss Steve. Cause Steve was larping. He was a larper. You dislike me. It's just like. It's funny to me. But, yeah, you know, whatever, man. Shout out to my niggas from spaceport like they was going to come out here. They actually, you know what? We still on the group text right now. They coming out here, man.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They do that at the park every weekend by my house.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Larp. Oh, that's a thing? For real? Yeah, they LARP around.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I love it. I love to watch them.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I saw. And this is one of my favorite things to watch. If anyone is ever at Verdugo park in Burbank on a Sunday, there's a sword fighting class.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So they do something similar, but not. But I know what you're talking about, too.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

These niggas in this sore fighting class are the funniest people in la. It's just funny. They training to be Jon Snow. Like, they out there with broadsword, wooden broadswords learning how to sword fight. And I used to love to watch it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. And they come dressed up. Or do you? No, maybe I should dress up.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

They come with, like, little armor all kinds of shit. All right, Donnie, before we get out of here, I want to talk about Transformation Church.

[Donnie]

Yeah, let's talk about it. That's Mike Todd's church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Easter Sunday. They had a sermon. And at this sermon, this happened.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Jesus Christ. Adam paid the price when he died in three days he will rise, give up praise he's alive Jesus is king. Everybody lift it up Everybody lift it up Lift it up, everybody. Before I Lose it in this. I love it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And you should.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I don't get the issue here. What's the issue here? I love it. It would have been different if they did. They took it everything. And I loved the response from this brother, Roosevelt Stewart. He responded, responded, and I legitimately had come up with what I thought. He. I cannot say it better than what he said. It. Donnie, play Roosevelt Stewart. What up, y'?

[Rachel Lindsay]

All?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's Roosevelt. I've been watching a lot of the responses. Some of them have been like, ah, yeah, let's go. And someone like, why would you do that? But I want to get some context on the controversy. The Bible declares in Psalms that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness there are. So there's literally nothing in this earth that cannot be used to give the glory to God. And that is what I truly believe. So anytime that we hear something secular, it is only barring what God has already placed into the earth. And I'm just simply reusing it and repurposing it. Man, if only there was a song that kind of aligned with, like, Redeeming Everything that the enemy took and God making it good again. You know what? Actually, I wrote a song called redeem with on April 17th. I. I honestly struggle to understand the backlash from the Christian community here about this. Well, I actually don't struggle for it. I know why. I'll talk about it later.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Why?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, because of a general mistrust in the church.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Explain.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

So, like, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

There's nothing wrong with it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Like, they took a song and they actually cleverly flipped the song, and then they made something catchy out there, and

[Rachel Lindsay]

then they transitioned into something beautiful. You know, I've been to Transformation Church a couple of times, okay? Like, they have an amazing music ministry.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

The reverse has happened all the time, right? We've seen musical stylings and musical traditions taken out of the church and used in secular music, Right? And because a lot of the music and a lot of the way that we worship the music. When you want to stir people, you take traditions that are used to stir people. You put them in your music. But the general distrust in the church that has arisen comes from people's questioning on the utility of the church. We've talked about this before, and whether or not something like that is for the glory of God or whether or not it's for the glory of the people on that stage. Now, once again, I exist in charity with everyone. I have no reason to believe that that man right There is not saying what he actually truly means in his heart, and he is not in any way condemning anyone. When Mike Todd did his thing where he told me, I can't play the game, I'm gonna have a problem with him right now. I'm playing the game. The Dodgers are 27 3. Freddie Freeman, Max Muncie. All my guys are in the top five in slugging. Okay? I'm not gonna stop playing the game. I'll play the game when I get home. Right now. All right, I'm gonna read. Play the game. So if you're being said, any criticism of somebody's life with something as innocuous as playing video games, to me, like, that was going to piss me off. But this seemed to be joyous. It was clever, and I didn't understand it, but I think it more exists in the fact that there's just this general distrust of the church that is. It's almost been mainstreamed. That didn't exist when I was growing up.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, well, we also didn't have social media in the way that we do now. I think. I think you're right on that end one. And I think the Drewski skit now has emboldened people to find moments like this to be able to say, oh, look, see, Drew Ski was right. Or see what they did without actually paying attention to what they do. They've been doing this. This music ministry has done this for years, where they have turned songs that are familiar in secular. With secular music and turned it into something that was gospel. But it's also not that distant from, like, Kirk Franklin. No, he was creating his own songs, but the way that he was singing them and the way that we were dancing, it was like a whole movement to the point where they started playing those songs on the radio. And if you're trying to bring people in or, you know, like, spread the word, as the Bible says, then why can't you take a song like this and turn it into something that's still. That's purposeful, that uses your message and is catchy. And instead of having people say fiend, you got people saying king. I don't see the problem with that. But I think the other end of that are the traditionalists that think that church has to be one way because that's the way that they were taught or that's the way that they grew up in it. And anything that differs from that is wrong. I think people try to hold on to this certain playbook when it comes to how you're supposed to worship how you're supposed to preach and anything that veers away from that is wrong. I think you're getting a lot of that, too.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. I always wonder about those people, though, because when I go into some of these churches, I see microphones, I see electric guitars, see all kinds of things that reflect changes in technology and cultural understanding. Right. I see different forms of music, different types of music. I see music that would not have been in favor in 1934. I don't see a ton of banjos and all kinds of different shit like that. I see them embracing new cultural traditions, new cultural technologies. And the reality is that when you have hip hop music or music that has a specific drum pattern to it, that is something that is new. And if you cleanse the music, I guess if you want to use that term of anything that would be displeasing to God and use it to worship God, I would think that that would be embraced by all people. I think a lot of this criticism is coming from people outside of the church, for sure, who are looking at the church and think that this indicates a lack of seriousness in the church. Right. The question is, what's beneath that? Like I said, what's beneath that is a deep questioning that we are having with the church. I talked to a guy named Jerome Gay for a long time. Pastor. Me and him were on the phone for, like, two hours, like, because he did something where he was talking about his views on homosexuality. He was responding to Kevin Stage Kev onstage being on our podcast. Now, I desperately want to have a contemporary church conversation on the pot, particularly around the era on the area of sexuality. Now, what I wouldn't want to do is have somebody who was queer up here and subject them to debasing, dehumanizing rhetoric coming from someone who tells them that their life is an affront to God, that who they are is an affront to God. Right. I don't want to do that, but I do want to, if we can. And me and Jerome talked about it. Jared Hill gave me some people that perhaps could do this. If we can. I would like to have a deeper conversation about what people expect from the church. Like what? Like what really people expect from the church, even if you aren't. Not. Are not religious. Is there an expectation of the black church, something that still has so much reverence in our community? Is there an expectation there that you have and, like, what's fair to expect? Sometimes Maybe I'm unfair. Maybe I'm unfair with the church.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You might be.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Sometimes. Maybe I hold the Church to a standard. That's not. Doesn't make any sense. Who knows?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I would be interested in that conversation. But I think we all do in certain ways, maybe hold an unrealistic expectation.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I think I was treated unfairly today.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You can take that away. You can take a. Well cannot talk. You can walk away with that if you want to. Nobody treated you unfairly. It was actually a very logical question because never in my wildest dreams did I think that you would be a full grown adult participating in what most of us grew up doing in elementary and junior high. Maybe it wasn't a lock in. Maybe y' all just, like, stayed overnight and played games so y' all could get great at it, so you could go on these tours and win in these tournaments. Maybe that's how you should feel.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

What's interesting is that you think patronizing me would be the way to kind of like.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I thought I looked at it as understanding.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

No, it's.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I was trying to understand it.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

It's not. That's not what happened at all. It was a lock in, because that's what we called it. Because it was definitely a lock in. And we were excited about it. We would go, we would get food, we would hang out, drinks, all kinds of stuff. They had nachos that you could buy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Y' all had to open. Y' all could open the bar.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

We. We did. We did drink because we were grown. We had some drink. You had a little drink drink that's in there. I would take a pineapple Fanta, which I love. You like a pineapple Fanta.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I've never had a pineapple Fanta.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I got one in the motherfucking refrigerator right now, dad.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Only orange. Red.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

That's what I'm talking about. See, that's the fucking shit that I'm talking about when I'm talking about Rach talking about the fact that every once in a while people say that Rach is a little bougie and stuff. But then Rach does the niggerest shit. That Fanta is not red. That is a strawberry Fanta. But in Rach's mind, it's red. Cause that's a real finger on the other side of this goddamn table. I. I'm sorry to you. She said orange, but she said red. We call it orange because orange is both a color and a flavor. And it's a fucking fruit. But Rach said red. Cause that's a nigga. She was sneaking out, going to Fuel City, drinking red Fanta syrup at the end of it. That's what the fuck I'm talking about. But no, there's nothing wrong with a lock in and you know, everyone, it's fine, like shout out to my niggas. But you know, that's what y' all want. Y' all want niggas to, to be in the streets. You know, I want them to do things that are wholesome.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So we have to go before we get out of here. We want to plug a new book. A new book. I have it. You have it. Started reading it. It's called Start with yourself and it is by Emma Greed. It is actually out today as you're listening to this podcast. It's described as a game changing, no BS guide for anyone that is seeking meaningful success on their own terms. If you are unfamiliar with who Emma Greed is, she is CEO and co founder of the denim company Good American and a founding partner of skims.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Big deal.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And a co founder of Safely Cleaning products. Very successful. I wear Good American. I wear skims.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I wear skims.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You wear skims?

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, Skims. Skims makes this. The skims T shirts are fire.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really great. So if you want to learn more about Start with yourself, which is all about self leadership in addition to Emma Grete, who she is, how she built all this success and she did it on her own terms, make sure you go get her book out today, wherever you get your books.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Absolutely. We are not getting to a story that is just starting to blow up in the Internet. I want to mention it because we're going to talk more about it Thursday after I've had a chance to do a little research into it because this story is already more comes out.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah. Weaponized for the gender wars between black men and black women. There was unfortunately a tragedy that took place in Africa. A young woman who was on a vacation with the guy, your boyfriend, he wasn't her fiance. Yeah, he became her fiance on a vacation.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right, right.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

She was found dead. People are saying that people the authorities there say that she unalived herself. But and there's a little bit behind it, there was apparently at some point her and her boyfriend had to be separated. Her fiance had to be separated. They'd be put in two separate hotel rooms. That is what authorities there are saying. And then they found her unconscious later on and they're saying that she unalived herself. She went on this trip with this guy who has she been seeing for some time. And people are saying that he, that he is responsible for her death. Once again, authorities are not quite saying that yet. But a lot of people are demanding answers to what happened to her. Her name is. We have it in here.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Ashley Robinson.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Ashley Robinson is her name, but online

[Rachel Lindsay]

she's known as Ashley Janae.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Ashley Janae. So her. Her. A lot of people, the demanding answers, but apparently there. Remember we had the story about the gentleman in Miami who was killed by his girlfriend. She was white, he was black, and he had made all kinds of disparaging comments about black. About black women. So a lot of people were saying, hey, this is kind of par for the horse. This is what you get. And now what's happening beyond the loss of the life of this young woman, which is insanely tragic.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Exactly.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Disgusting. That's being used as a cudgel between black men and black women. People are going back through her old tweets and talking about that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We just. We're just so desensitized to stuff. Somebody died. And instead of focusing on the fact that somebody died mysteriously and there are questions surrounding that, and a family is grieving that and trying to understand what happened to such a young life that's lost, we are moving past that, moving past death and trying to find understanding through social media. Like, it's just. We're just so desensitized.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

I mean, you're right. You're right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, we'll get more into it as it comes out. And I know that this happened, like you said, with that murder a few years ago in Miami, but, like, we just. It's scary. It just. It's just so scary to me that the conversation has moved past her death to this.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And I'll say the same thing with him.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Well, I do have to remember, though, is how we covered his. Because I think we covered it here.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We'll look into that. We definitely. No, we definitely talked about.

[Zah Van Lathan Jr.]

Yeah, I can't remember, like, how it was covered and, you know, how people look at it and stuff like that. But I'm not interested in relitigating somebody's life after they're gone. What I am interested in is kind of getting to answers as to what happened to this young woman as she was on this trip. And now it doesn't look like there's going to be a way to get around that. People are not going to stop asking the questions until our answers. Okay, Take the. Take decaf. Do not stop.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm Rachel and Lindsay.