This is the Mother Jones Podcast.

I'm Jamila King in New York.

On this week's

on this week's show, a 4th of July special interview with artist, director, and rapper Boots Riley.

There's a zeitgeist happening that is not to do with art itself. It's to do with people trying to figure out how they can

handle the problems that exist in our world. About his hilarious and deceptively political new film,

Sorry to bother you.

I finished writing it the first time in 2012.

It applied then.

That doesn't mean things aren't worse, which they are.

The movements of the moment shaping his message.

Because I've seen some progressive culture makers

attempt to do things that I feel like a really heavy-handed.

Also on the show, the untold and fascinating story of the national anthem and the fiddle?

Key's poem implies that these guys were cowardly or dishonorable and you're like, what?

And it wouldn't be a show about America if we didn't talk about all the ways those in power

are trying to define and redefine American identity,

including the ongoing nightmare at the border.

Not spoken to them in weeks or ever since they've been separated. They may not know their

child's location they're essentially

in jail so that's been the biggest challenge for for lawyers and the separated

parents.

...