Hey, this is Ari Melbury. You're listening to The Beat with Ari Melburgh podcast, and this is a podcast extra, as you can tell from my personal introduction. Sometimes we share with you the audio of the whole show on TV. This is something extra and special that I want to share with you. And it's about civil rights. It's about progress in America. It's about housing policy and gentrification, all built around what I call an incredible

poem or verse by Sean Carter, JZ, on the song What's Free, which just celebrated its November

anniversary. And I mentioned November because there's also some Thanksgiving commentary in this.

So we did one of our breakdowns that we sometimes do on the show, and that's what you're about

to hear, followed by another breakdown that I did a little while back about a different

new Jay-Z song on DJ Collids God did, which if you listen to Beat a lot, you may know, was

something exciting around here because Jay-Z ultimately responded to it.

We had Collet on the show afterward, and so they made art.

We covered the art, interpreted some of it, and they responded to that, which created a whole dialogue, which is frankly something I love about this job.

And appreciate all of you guys who listen to watch the show and support the journalism and the work we're doing.

So that's what you're going to hear.

The breakdown of what's free that's brand new with meditation on our national anthem, our Thanksgiving traditions, and why we do need to look at history accurately. I'll explore that idea in here, followed by the other breakdown. As always, you can keep up with me online at ari melbaer.com you can actually go there and subscribe

to my free newsletter i email that out to you guys i've been hearing back from some of you about that

so you just go to rymelber dot com put your email in click the free subscription if you're interested

otherwise just keep up with us here on the podcast or wherever you get your news and this is our

podcast extra And this is our podcast, Extra.

As every American knows from school or any sporting event,

the national anthem is our star-spangled banner,

with that refrain touting America as the land of the free.

Better yet to weigh or the land of the land of the rest.

The now familiar lyrics, drawn from a poem written by an American lawyer, Francis Skye Key,

about a victorious battle over the British.

...