Bonus: "Strange Fruit": How Black Artists Defied U.S. Racism, Got It Right And Paid The Price

The Beat with Ari Melber

Ari Melber, MS NOW

Politics, News, Versant Media, Ms Now, Daily News, Versant, Government

4.6 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a special in-depth report, Ari Melber goes through history and examines the way black artists and activists confronted racism and police brutality in their music and their own lives. Melber traces history from the works of Sam Cooke and Billie Holiday to N.W.A and 2Pac, and how many of their messages ring true today. Melber also looks at politicians who attacked these artists, demonizing their music and message. New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries joins for a special conversation on the report.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone, listen to the podcast. This is Ari Melbert, and this is a podcast extra.
0:04.9	First, I hope you're staying safe and well and doing what you need to do in these tough times.
0:09.4	2020 has been quite the year. We have the pandemic. We've had all kinds of news out of Washington,
0:15.4	and we've also had this ongoing reckoning for racism and racial injustice across America and structural and systemic
0:22.5	racism in the way America's organized. This week in this podcast, extra, and as I've mentioned
0:28.5	before, you guys have written in and posted comments and said, you like it when we put extra
0:31.9	things here, which we do on some weekends, not every weekend. We are going to take a deep look
0:36.8	at how today's protests
0:38.9	overlap with something so important in our political, legal, civil rights, and cultural
0:45.2	history. We start all the way back with Billy Holiday and Sam Cook and look at how artists,
0:52.6	musicians, and specifically black activists and
0:55.0	artists have both channeled and shaped civil rights movements and this long quest to fight and
1:02.2	confront and try to end police brutality, something that for too long, I argue, Americans,
1:08.3	some Americans have not listened to, not understood, and thus not acted on.
1:12.4	So this is a very special piece. If you watch the beat regularly, you may have seen, we talked
1:16.5	about it not only when we did it, but I've been listening to and responding to some of the
1:22.5	outpouring that we've gotten in response, and I'll continue to try to do that. So, without further
1:27.0	to do, here is that
1:27.9	special report. As always, if you think we deserve five stars or whatever we deserve, please
1:32.8	feel free to give us that rating, to drop your comments, we read them, and thanks as always for
1:37.8	listening to The Beat with Ari Melbert. And now to our special report. In the many cases where police kill innocent people, we hear a recurring plea from the victim's families. When will Americans believe what is happening and say enough is enough?
1:55.6	This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough.
	...

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