Hey everyone from NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton and I am back with our ninth episode of NPR

Music's Ladder Than a Riot Podcast. All season long the ladder team has been looking inward at

how culture created by the marginalized became such a marginalizing force to so many within.

And for one of the hosts, Rodney Carmichael and Terragating Massage and War in Hip Hop comes with

some questions for himself as a man as a father and a long time lover and critic of the culture.

As he thinks about raising the next generation without replicating his mistakes, Rodney considers

how to introduce his first love to his three-year-old son. And that means looking more closely at what

rap meant to him growing up and how it shaped his views on masculinity. On this episode, Ladder does

something a little different from the rest of the season. It's part meditation, part conversation,

between Rodney, Coho Sidney Madden and writer's Kia Say Laman and Jamila Lumiu. All about beats,

rhymes and life. That's right now on Ladder Than a Riot. A warning before we begin, this podcast

is explicit in every way. And in this episode, the N-word can be heard multiple times.

Oh, good. Everything's right. We got it.

Three years old might seem like a really young age to put your son on the biggy smiles.

For the way I said, nothing could be more fun.

Maybe that's the ego-tistical part of parenthood. The part that makes you feel like a mad scientist.

Like, I get to be the first person to introduce this dude to Hip Hop. It's just crazy.

Where do I begin? I got my answer with my wife bought him a biggie t-shirt.

Maybe I'll listen to the other B-I-G song.

Okay, the other B-I-G song. You want to listen to this one?

No, that's not the B-I-G song.

It's not the one you want to hear. I really like this one. You don't want it?

...