The Badder, The Better: Bobby Shmurda - “Louder Than A Riot” from NPR

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4.8 • 11.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rhyme and punishment go hand in hand in America. This week, we are featuring Louder Than A Riot, an incredible new podcast from NPR Music. It reveals the interconnected rise of hip-hop and mass incarceration. From Bobby Shmurda to Nipsey Hussle, each episode explores an artist's story to examine a different aspect of the criminal justice system that disproportionately impacts Black America.

STORY

The Badder, The Better: Bobby Shmurda (Pt 1)

Just like his legendary disappearing hat, Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda's career was on the rise in 2014. But so was the evidence in a murder case against his crew, GS9. In the first of three episodes exploring Bobby's story, we look at his come-up through the eyes of former Epic Records exec Sha Money XL, who guided Bobby on his tightrope walk from the streets to superstardom. What happens when the industry capitalizes on a criminal persona? And do record execs have the juice to back Bobby up when things get too hot?

Content Advisory: This story contains strong language and the mention of drug use and guns. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

Be sure to visit Louder Than A Riot to hear Part 2 and 3 of Bobby Shmurda’s story and listen to more incredible episodes. Follow the show on Twitter @LouderThanARiot and subscribe!

To hear the music in this episode, check out the Louder Than A Riot playlists on Apple Music & Spotify.

Louder Than A Riot is hosted by NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden, this podcast is invested in power from all angles — the power the music industry wields over artists, the power of institutional forces that marginalize communities of color, the power of the prison industrial complex and the power dynamics deep-rooted in the rap game.

Illustration by Dale Edwin Murray for NPR

Transcript

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0:00.0	Snap Judgment Studios
0:12.0	Snap Nation, we have a treat for you.
0:15.0	Some of our colleagues at the MPR, they spent years digging into the real stories behind hip-hop artists and where they came from.
0:24.0	And what they created, it is real, it's raw, it's intimate, it's called louder than a riot.
0:31.0	And the series, it dives into this intertwined history of hip-hop and mass incarceration.
0:38.0	It's where rhyme and punishment go hand in hand.
0:41.0	It's hosted by MPR music's Rodney Carmichael and Sydney Madden to understand they do not candy coat what's happening, what happened.
0:52.0	They're not trying to censor the words or the language coming out of mouths of people telling these stories.
0:57.0	It's louder than a riot.
0:59.0	And after you hear this episode, you're going to want to subscribe to the podcast with a quickness I know it.
1:05.0	Enough talk, I want to show.
1:10.0	A warning before we begin.
1:12.0	This podcast is explicit in every way.
1:15.0	December 16, 2014.
1:19.0	And overcast Evening in New York City, the shot money excel, he's feeling good.
1:25.0	The hip-hop vet and executive VP at Epic Records has just come in from LA and he said it acquired studios in Midtown Manhattan to meet one of his proto-Jays.
1:35.0	20-year-old rapper Bobby Schmurder.
1:38.0	Shah hasn't felt this excited about an artist since he helped develop 50 Cent and turned him into a household name.
1:45.0	But that was over a decade ago.
1:48.0	I was in the midst of just trying to find stars and there was nothing I could see that was going on in New York that I could find.
1:55.0	Yeah, nothing going on in New York.
1:57.0	Until he heard Bobby Schmurder's song, High Boy, it stole the summer and turned the kid from Brooklyn with his shmoney dance and his disappearing hat treat into an internet sensation.
	...

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