Hip Hop vs. Caribbeans | Diaspora Theory Live Clips

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]It's a difference between creation and contribution. I say this all the time.

[00:00:06]Nobody denies contributions, but when you come in and try to infiltrate and say that you started this, that's the problem.

[00:00:14]>> People who have a racial proximity to black Americans were present while black Americans was doing what they was already doing and they simply did it as well. Like literally, I I don't think we could call that contribution like you participated. That's one thing that I like about my people and when I say that I'm specifically speaking about black Americans is we don't feel a need to go to other countries and say we did this.

[00:00:40]We only threw it in y'all face when y'all attempt to steal from us. We have so many other melanated people that immigrate here and they think being a black American means just being phenotypically black and just walking around the country. No, we have a history here that goes back before 1776.

[00:00:58]If it came from a specific country, they would say it. But since they can't, they'll label it African. So, I always have a way of knowing when they're lying because they'll just call it African and just have that as a blanket statement.

[00:01:09]But I'm done.

[00:01:10]>> Yeah. They just don't like this ambiguous label that can be any and everything, right? Meanwhile, they're always the first and quick to jump at, oh, don't say Africa. It's 54 countries.

[00:01:21]What's African culture? There's all these linguistic groups. There's all these tribes. Like, be act as though you're cultured. be specific. They're the first to always do that. But now all of a sudden you your 54 countries that don't even like each other and have nothing to do with each other. Now all of a sudden y'all created uh one collective what?

[00:01:41]>> And during the few moments that we have left, we want to have just an offthe cuff chat between you and me. [music] >> Hey. Hey. um ethnicity is black, double black, African-American, both parents, grandparents, and grandparents before all the way back to when we got here.

[00:02:01]And originally, um born and raised in Miami, Florida, but currently I'm in Atlanta, Georgia.

[00:02:09]And [clears throat] I just wanted to add to the post, excuse me, to the comments in the sense of I just find it extremely aggravating that all of these countries you can go to anywhere in South America, North America to Jamaica, the West Indies, you can go and you can listen to their music and they all have a certain cadence and rhythm. It sounds alike.

[00:02:34]They want to say they created rap when rap sounds nothing like anything that comes from any of these countries, not even the continent of Africa in which they want to say that, you know, it it all comes from there. Even African music sounds like the music in South America and Jamaica, the West Indies, etc. I don't believe that these people understands the leaps and bounds, the Supreme Court decisions that even allowed for hip hop. Uh um and we'll big up Uncle Luke, also known as Luther Campbell, who took it to the Supreme Court so that rap lyrics and rap was considered a part of freedom of speech because we was getting arrested for doing rap and having certain lyrics um in our music that they would see or deem um inappropriate at times. And I don't remember no Jamaican, Haitian, um Brazilian, African, etc. being arrested or going to court to fight those battles with black Americans. It was us who spearheaded it. We are the creators. And because I'm going to say this proudly, because your music is inferior to ours does not mean that you have to leech and latch yourself on. If you want your music to be number one and big and be in the biggest spotlight, then you have to create that. You have to do that for yourself. That's one thing that I like about my people and when I say that I'm specifically speaking about black Americans is we don't feel a need to go to other countries and say we did this.

[00:04:12]We only throw it in y'all face when y'all attempt to steal from us. As far as hip hop is concerned, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, rock, pop, all of that. We know where it come came from. Our grandparents and parents grew up and was raised in it. Therefore, we were. And that's how we're able to bring these receipts because we know our culture again that they say that we don't have but they relish and participate in daily, weekly, hourly, yearly. It's aggravating [clears throat] and this is the reason for delineation.

[00:04:48]We have to be able to say this is who we are and you are not that. When that girl said both of her parents was Liberian, Osmo dropped my ramen noodles. Cuz why are you a part of the conversation? Why are you even here, my dear? I can't even tell you one thing about Liberia. Do you have a president? Do you have a prime minister? We don't even know what GOES ON IN THESE PLACES, but they have the unmititigated God to sit on a panel with so much conviction about our history.

[00:05:24]And it is extremely annoying and I will land my plane with this. Leave us alone. We don't care.

[00:05:32][laughter] We We really don't. Hip hop is ours. It has been ours and it will forever. No one can take that and the other billions of accomplishments that we have. There is no one who can take that from us. If you're jealous, create some of your own and make it pop.

[00:05:52]Period.

[00:05:53]>> That part I just wanted to add cuz a few people came up here trying to assert that uh the connection of playing drums was from Africa. Literally everyone on the face of the planet earth have played drums. Like literally Vikings play the drums. Literally Scandinavians play the drums. Like there are some things that are unique and cultural to a specific group of people. But then there are just humanistic things and drums are not African. Loento free world. You there with us? What um what ethnicity are you and what country you live in? Free world.

[00:06:31]>> Yes, I'm here. Um, I am black American, proud of it. Um, I was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx, and uh just uh just something to the brothers from the South. I love the South. I ain't got nothing. That's that's the roots right there. Um, but one thing I want to touch on and so many people coming up here with this this and that and this and that, they creation and contribution. I say this all the time. Nobody denies contributions. But when you come in and try to infiltrate and say that you started this, that's the problem. Cuz no other ethnicity started or you know, nobody other than the black Americans started hip-hop. And the thing about it when we talk about hip-hop are we talk it seems like a lot of this is is really focusing on the music but hip-hop is a culture which comes with elements and which um the ho said and I think uh another gentleman uh a few other gentlemen came up here and they said that a lot of this stuff was already being done by us black Americans in America. is just that in New York all these all these elements came together and that's what that's what created hip-hop. So, how can you once again I'm just going to reiterate what some of the uh panel said and the host. How can you create something that was already here?

[00:08:02]Black Americans created I mean every popular music out in this world came from here from us you know and and just like the young lady just said too you know they people want to come in and take try to take it just cuz they they contributed to it.

[00:08:20]You didn't create anything. It was already in place is cool. You want to you want to do you want to you love the music. You want to do it. Cool. But you have no part in the creation. And another thing before I go, when I was growing up younger, um I grew up with Koolhawk's um one of Kuh Hawk's brothers, younger brothers, Kenny. And I'm going tell you like this.

[00:08:45]I didn't know Kenny was Jamaican until I got older.

[00:08:50]And the reason why I say that is because nobody at that time was acting like where they came from. they were acting like us. So, I'm just leave it like that. I'm out.

[00:09:05]>> Listen, I feel like even uh contribution is even a stretch because it implies that hiphop would not exist without those quote unquote what we're trying to call contributions, right? And I feel like it really just comes down to proximity. people who have a racial proximity to black Americans were present while black Americans was doing what they was already doing and they simply did it as well. Like literally I I don't think we could call that contribution like you participated. You participated I could I could I could agree with that. I could you did you did you did cool you did a little cool stuff here and there you know but you did something that was already being done.

[00:09:50]So, like you said, that can't be created uh or that can't be defined as creating anything. Uh Rob, you there with us?

[00:09:59]What's your ethnicity and what country you live in? Rob, >> yo, can y'all hear me?

[00:10:06]>> Yeah.

[00:10:07]>> All right. What's good? Yeah. Uh black American Freeman, uh United States. Uh how you doing? Doing good. You're doing a good job with the the live stream.

[00:10:15]>> Thank you. Thank you.

[00:10:17]>> Um yeah. Um, a couple of the brothers already kind of said a couple things that I wanted to say, but there was a few other words that I wanted to um, define, so hopefully I'm not repeating uh, too too much. I know the brother Rashad already mentioned the uh, drum kit. He's absolutely right. That was made in New Orleans by our black American Freeman brother Edward Chandler. That's got nothing to do with no African drums or whatever like that.

[00:10:38]But couple words I want to um, define real quick because people are very confused by what I guess race and ethnicity mean for whatever reason. But the first word I want to define is the word assimilation which is the process of absorbing or incorporating often used to describe uh one group adopting into another dominant group or just another group and a key example would be immigrants that may undergo cultural assimulation by adopting the language clothing and dining habits in their new country. So, just because you immigrate into the United States and assimilate into our pre-existing lineage and culture does not mean you are a part of our lineage. It is not our problem. If you go back to your family's homeland in Jamaica or Nigeria or whatever and they want to call you a Yankee or say that you're not one of them, that is not our problem. You are not a part of our lineage. It's because you grew up next to us. That's called assimilation. Which is fine. Like one of the other brothers said, we are very, you know, open and giving culture, but that does not mean you are a part of our lineage just because we have a shared skin color, phenotype, and you grew up around us by way of immigration. Our culture and lineage, black American free men, did not come by way of of immigration. We had to build this from the ground up as well as the country. That's one. Next word I want to uh define is the word ethnogenesis which is the process by which a group of people becomes recognized as a distinct ethnic group involving the formation of a new identity through shared culture, language, ancestry or political interaction. So once again just because we may have some shared DNA with black folks in the Caribbean or the West Indians or South America, Africa, whatever, that does not mean we don't have our own distinct ethnic lineage.

[00:12:25]Just like Caribbeans have their own distinct ethnic lineage, etc., etc., etc., we have our own culture. The issue is is the United States is a very heavily immigrant uh immigrant country.

[00:12:35]So, we've had so many ways of immigrants that have come through this country over the years. You don't have that going on the other way around, especially with us as black Americans. We're not immigrating in the millions into Haiti.

[00:12:47]So, there's not this issue of what Haitian culture is because it's just Haitians there. We don't have there's more uh black Jamaicans outside of Jamaica than in Jamaica. So like that like so of course most black Americans we're here. We most of us did not leave.

[00:13:03]And the ones who do usually we're just traveling back and forth whatever like that.

[00:13:07]>> So that this is where the confusion comes in when it comes >> down. Take your Okay, take your ass back up then.

[00:13:13]>> Uh oh. Can y'all hear me?

[00:13:15]>> Yeah. Go ahead. Someone was >> uh my bad.

[00:13:18]>> So no you good. So that that is the issue when it comes to our ethnic culture because we have so many other melanated people that immigrate here and they think being a black American means just being phenotypically black and just walking around the country. No, we have a history here that goes back before 1776. And the last thing I want to bring up is people keep want to bring up New York as the birthplace of hip hop and act like black Americans only uh resided in the south before the 1900s. There is a plantation that still exists right now called Sylvester Manor in Sel uh uh Shelter Island, New York, which is about 100 miles outside of Manhattan. This uh plantation was established in 1651. And right now they have an Afroindigenous burial ground there where some of our ancestors are buried, their bones and soil. Okay? We built this country from the ground up. You cannot imagine your family building a whole house from the soil and then somebody else from a whole another uh family moves into your house and adds a shingle and says, "Hey, I built this house, too. This is my house." Look, we'll give you credit for adding on. Okay, cool. You added on a shingle. Bet. Thank you for the shingle.

[00:14:30]That's cool. We built this house from the soil, from the dirt. We had to dig the ditches. We had to build the the infrastructures, the wood, the the metal, all of this stuff, the raw materials. We built the house. house as in the United States. Just because you brought your butt over here hundreds of years later and added a shingle does not mean that you created this country, nor hip hop, nor blues, nor potato chips, nor baked macaroni and cheese, nor the filament in the light bulb, nor GPS, nor uh computer chips, none of this stuff, okay? That comes from a distinct lineage and ethnic group of black people here.

[00:15:05]We did not immigrate here. And I'mma land my plan. 225 people in the room.

[00:15:11]Everyone who agrees with him, double tap the screen right now. Everyone who agrees with him, double tap the screen right now. Okay, we have two more people go and then open panel. Kim is next.

[00:15:25]Hello, Kim. How you doing?

[00:15:26]>> Hey, I'm doing good.

[00:15:28]>> Good for the room. You'd like to introduce yourself?

[00:15:32]>> Um, yes. So, black American uh from Queens and then I'm in Georgia now. for sharing piece with us.

[00:15:40]>> Um, I just really wanted to highlight because I feel like as black Americans, we're always told that we are um conceited and full of ourselves, but I want to take this this moment to just talk about how humble we are because we have influenced reggae, but you'll never hear a black American say that we made reggae. Even when it comes to Afro beats, like you can blatantly hear the R&B and Afro beats, but you'll never hear black Americans say, "Oh, that's our genre. Without us, there would be, you know, no afro beats or reggae."

[00:16:11]Like, we let people have that genre. But for some reason, when it comes to our culture and our music, I feel like a lot of immigrants that come here have a colonizer mentality. And because of that, they want to be able to take claim of things. And when it comes to uh hiphop specifically, I noticed that they're trying to make it a regional thing. We're saying like, oh, like this is this is New York culture or this is like from the Bronx, but and black Americans are not regional people. Like for example, when it comes to Mottown and Detroit, yes, it was started in Detroit, but it is black American culture and they're trying to make it regional so they can attach themselves to it. And it's even more disrespectful when they try and create these lines in the sand of north versus south. Like um the person that was up here earlier, they wouldn't even say that they were Liberian, but wanted to sit here and take like a slight jab at black Americans in the south. And it's very dangerous because they're low-key trying to create issues on a regional level that aren't even there because they're not even black American. So that was one point I wanted to make. And then two, there was someone else on here that mentioned Fat Joe and Puerto Ricans.

[00:17:25]Please tell me where in hiphop there is a Latin influence, people speaking Spanish, and even if you were to take Fat Joe and even before Fat Joe, there was Big Pun. So take both of them out of it and they never existed, hip-hop would still be hip-hop. and to and and the reason why it's not even just New York rap because if you notice as black Americans started to move down south, the genre also started to move down south as well in Atlanta. So, as we sit here and try and make it about regional, make it about, you know, oh, um, we heavily populated the Bronx, like 2026 and the 60s and 70s are two different demographics. Black Americans were much more heavily populated in the Bronx back in those days. So, we have to stop looking at it from a lens of today where oh, it's just all Caribbeans because it's not. And um there was one more thing I wanted to say say. Well, two more things really quickly. Um I feel like with hip-hop now being a household name, that's also why they're attaching themselves to it. because hip-hop was ostracized for decades and I never heard someone from from Korean descent say, "Oh, this is our genre. Don't talk about our genre." But now when it's big and it's a household name now, everyone wants to attach themselves to it.

[00:18:45]Because my uncle told me that back in those days, especially Latinos, they were not like embracing that genre like that. Like on the low they were, but it wasn't something to where they were out in the open in regards to embracing hip-hop music. And last thing I wanted to mention but was because Camala at the White House she had an event. It was like some sort of hip-hop event and in her speech. She she she recognized Caribbean roots in the genre. She mentioned the Latin spice or whatever.

[00:19:15]She said African drums and then she didn't even acknowledge black American.

[00:19:19]She said and also the influences of R&B and and and stolen jazz. And it's like that right there is the disrespect that we're talking about. And even when it comes to like the word African, I've noticed that Africans will will call something African when they can't tie the specific country because they're very proud people. So if it was Nigerian or Ghanian, they would say it was Nigerian drums or it was Ghanian drums.

[00:19:47]The same way how they say, "Oh, R&B is African." I saw a video on that as well.

[00:19:52]if if it came from a specific country, they would say it. But since they can't, they'll label it African. So, I always have a way of knowing when they're lying because they'll just call it African and just have that as a blanket statement.

[00:20:03]But I'm done.

[00:20:04]>> You know, they just this ambiguous label that can be any and everything, right? Meanwhile, they're always the first and quick to jump at, oh, don't say Africa. It's 54 countries.

[00:20:15]What's African culture? There's all these linguistic groups. There's all these tribes. like be act as though your culture be specific. They're the first to always do that. But now all of a sudden you your 54 countries that don't even like each other and have nothing to do with each other. Now all of a sudden y'all created uh one collective. What?

[00:20:34]Uh-huh.