-Our next guest is a Grammy Award-winning rapper,
activist, and half of the hip-hop duo Run the Jewels.
Please welcome back to the show Killer Mike.
Thank you so much for being here.
-Seth, how you doing, brother? -I'm doing well.
Thanks for being here so late.
You are at least comfortably at home, yes?
-No, I'm actually in the studio.
I owed some guest verses out, so I'm working the late shift.
I'm working third shift at UPS like when I was 19.
[ Both laugh ] I'm in the studio all night.
-Hey, while we're there, and I know it will pale
in the significance of everything
we're gonna talk about tonight, but I do want to say
Run the Jewels put out a great album last year,
and you should have been nominated for a Grammy,
and you were robbed. And I'm gonna leave it at that.
-I'm gonna strongly co-sign.
And thank you for being a believer in us.
And with that said, the people who were nominated
for Best Rap Album of the Year all were deserving,
and Run the Jewels definitely should've been
Album of the Year, so I agree.
Maybe next year. We'll try again.
-You know what?
I would expect nothing less from you two.
So, you know, last night was obviously a night
of great optimism, a night to celebrate,
and I want to talk about what was accomplished in Georgia,
but I also want to ask, on a day when it seemed like
that would be what the news cycle was,
obviously, it was ripped away, based on the incident,
the activities that happened in D.C.
What was your reaction to what you saw in D.C.?
-Well, my reaction was, I woke up knowing that Georgia
had done a heck of a job,
that everyone from the hip-hop community in Atlanta
and throughout the state had worked their butt off.
They had worked their butt off, some, the progressives,
from 16 and forward, they worked their butt off,
you know, in an alliance with Keisha,
worked their butt off, in an alliance with Stacey.
What I really respected about the integrity, though,
of my state, beyond people you'd think I would
typically agree with, I was very pleased to see
the integrity of our Governor Kemp
and of Brad Raffensperger, our Secretary of State.
Because they called it for Biden.
They called it honest. They called it fair.
And I respected the fact that my state did the right thing.
The state went blue.
Republicans in the state didn't try to get in the way of it.
It happened. So I woke up on a high.
I woke up knowing that Warnock had won,
pretty sure that Ossoff was gonna be called the winner.
I woke up understanding that my community, hip-hop community,
had helped put them there in big part.
And I got a call from my 13-year-old a few hours ago
that, "Dad, this stuff was happening at the Capitol."
And it led me into a longer conversation with her
about how I admired the fact that she participated
in the political process by paying attention.
I admired the fact her 18-year-old brother
had voted for the first time.
And I really wanted her to understand that the people
that were at the Capitol, although I encourage protests
for any American -- right? -- I don't encourage what we saw.
And, essentially, it is violence, it is evil,
it is "I didn't get my wayism."
It is the refusal to accept that this republic
is ran by the power of the vote, and people have voted
an older president out and the president-elect in,
and we need to accept that.
And I thought that it was a great time
to teach her about civics and to teach her that
what we have done in this state is more important
than this ugly moment.
And I hope that all Americans plot, plan, strategize,
organize, and mobilize for a union post this.
We've done the Civil War once.
It didn't work out well for the region I grew up in
in the South, and it didn't work out well
for this nation as a whole.
We repaired past that, although we didn't do
the perfect repair we deserved.
We are on our way to a more perfect union.
But it will only happen if we use times like these
as a way to cooperate and collaborate
for the betterment of this republic
instead of displaying the type of behavior that we saw today.
-Many people were drawing the distinction today
on social media between the police presence
that was at the Capitol today,
knowing full well that there was going to be this rally,
with the police presence that was in place
during Black Lives Matter's protests in D.C. this summer,
during, you know, the protests this summer.
What were your thoughts when you saw what looked to be
a pretty clear difference?
-We know that there's -- that justice is lopsided.
We know that.
There has been this example and dozens more,
and I would argue hundreds more.
The question for me becomes, at what point do we have to keep
using these stark examples versus doing something about it?
At what point do we encourage
the demilitarization of police, period?
At what point do we live out what the people thought today,
they thought that they were doing
what was a free people doing right by a republic?
At what point do we want that for everyone?
Noam Chomsky said, "If you don't believe
in free speech for those you disagree with,
you don't believe in it at all."
And I am, as I grow older,
understanding that clearer and clearer.
It is not only my right to like the stuff I like,
it's my right and it's everyone's right
to have to accept the fact that people have the right to say,
people have the right to do,
so long as they aren't harming others.
And in this country, if we're ever gonna be fair,
we have to call the B.S. where it is.
Today, what happened was B.S.
versus what happened over the summer.
And at some point as a Republic, we're gonna have to cooperate
and collaborate with those that we disagree with
for the betterment and a more perfect union in this republic.
And until we do that honestly, until we want for others
what we want for ourselves, we will repeat this cycle
over and over again and will make us inept.
-You mentioned how the hip-hop community was a large part
of the activism and the voter registration in Georgia.
And we were talking to Mayor Bottoms this summer,
and I'd just seen her speaking with you, with T.I.,
you know, during some of the protests in Atlanta.
And she mentioned that you all went to the same high school.
What is it like have this relationship
with the mayor of your city?
-Frederick Douglass High School.
Let me tell you, 70% of the schools in Atlanta
are named for Black educators or emancipators.
We went to Frederick Douglass High School.
Frederick Douglass Astros.
I want to shout out Dr. Samuel Hill,
who's in his 80s and still around,
who was my principal, and Dr. Lester Butts,
who was the principal before him, was my mom's principal.
There's a tradition of creating excellence in this high school.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, T.I., Killer Mike,
Chief Judge Asha Jackson in DeKalb County,
Michael Julian Bond, city councilperson,
Cameron Dollar, former national champion, UCLA,
and Coach out in Seattle, Stanley Pritchett,
Robert Hicks, my best friend since kindergarten
whose mom, Miss Hicks, was the school secretary.
It really was a small-town vibe in the midst of a big city.
It produced excellence. We were taught
from the day we got there, without struggle
there is no process -- there is no progress.
And Frederick Douglass also said, "It's easier to build
strong children than repair broken men."
He was an amazing author and orator.
We were raised in his lineage and image,
and I'm proud to be a Frederick Douglass Astro.
And I also want to say, beyond just our mayor,
who's an amazing Black woman, and beyond Stacey Abrams,
who went to Spelman, my sister college --
I went to Morehouse -- who's an amazing black woman,
I want to make sure Nina Turner, who's gonna be
running for Congress out of Ohio gets her props.
She's a person that pushed me
to push Bernie Sanders to support Stacey Abrams.
Stacey Abrams was pushing, although she did not
get a chance to be the governor of Georgia,
she's a big part of the reason that this state did turn blue.
Her, Keisha, Warnock, Ossoff, myself, the hip-hop community.
But I don't want to leave out someone who's not in Georgia
but definitely has the cut to be, and that's Mina Turner.
So I want to encourage people to get behind her in Ohio,
and let's make sure that she gets to Congress, as well.
-All right. We'll be right back
with more Killer Mike after this.