Anti-racism protesters concerned about increased presence of far-right militias at U.S. demonstrations

Guests: Corey Prince, Sam Jackson, Bakari Sellers

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound from protests in the US]

RB: The sound of demonstrators and counter-demonstrators exchanging rocks, water bottles and paint gun pellets. But protests in Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, have turned deadly over the last week. Two separate shootings have left three people dead. These latest protests against police brutality were triggered after a police officer shot a black man, Jacob Blakhe, in Kenosha, leaving him paralysed. But far-right groups have come to both cities to combat anti-racism protesters. Corey Prince is a community organizer in Wisconsin and he is in Kenosha. Good morning, Corey.

COREY PRINCE: Good morning.

RB: How would you describe the past few days on the streets of Kenosha?

COREY PRINCE: Chaos. That's the way to describe it.

RB: What's been going on?

COREY PRINCE: So we have the occupying force of the police who, under the guise of protecting a building that was protected by a fence, come out routinely and antagonize the crowd and the crowd antagonized the police back. And there's a push and a pull and a give and a take, flash bangs, grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets. People hurt, people crying, people injured, people running, people trampled. And then the police pushing the people right into our militia.

RB: What did you see the night that three people were shot, two of them killed during the protests?

COREY PRINCE: That night, I saw the city of Kenosha institute a 8:00 curfew, and there was peaceful demonstrations in Civic Centre Park until about 9:00. And at about 9:00, people started assembling in the park itself. And the police came out at about 9:15-9:30, although curfew was at 8:00 and there was a steel fence surrounding the safety building. So there was no need for police to come outside. They came out, but they stayed inside the fence. In full riot gear with shields, batons and weapons. Of course, this antagonizes the crowd, they come to the fence, the rambunctiousness ensues, tanks come in. That day there was a armed militia. There was a rally of Protect Kenosha, a Kenosha militia rally. And we had saw armed people of the public all day. And as it was getting closer to dark, there was just a couple incidents, verbal incidents back and forth just between protesters and the Kenosha militia people. That incident died down. The militia then moved down to Sheridan Road and out of sight. And so the protest continued into the park 10:30, 11:00 and then the police began to push the protesters out of the park, toward Sheridan Road and right into the militia.

RB: Did you have any direct contact with these far-right protesters? Did you talk to them?

COREY PRINCE: I did actually.

RB: What was that like? What was that conversation like?

COREY PRINCE: Well, I had an opportunity to talk to three gentlemen who were there disguised in military gear with their face covered, and they were trying to encourage protesters to go in a certain direction, to walk a certain way. And myself and the security team that I was with asked simply, who are you? And, you know, why are you here? They said, we're here to protect protesters, but also to protect businesses. At that point, there was a conversation that ensued between someone else and these gentlemen and the conversation was along the lines of that a lot of the businesses in the area are not a part of the community. They just stand in the community. For example, there's a Department of Corrections building that was burned to the ground. And although I don't advocate burning, looting, rioting or violence, I do understand that a building for the Department of Corrections that exists in the state with the highest level of incarceration for black men in the United States of America, that building does not exist as a part of the community.

RB: Corey, President Trump is scheduled to visit Kenosha today. What do you want to hear from him?

COREY PRINCE: Well, I would love to hear from President Trump is a message of equality, a message of fairness, a message of justness, a message of right and wrong, a message of accountability to police officers and law enforcement, a message of easement of systemic oppression and systemic racism in this country.

RB: You think you're going to hear that message?

COREY PRINCE: Well, I'm not that optimistic. I believe that President Trump is coming to create more chaos, to sow dissent and to stoke the fires of racism, to ignite his racist base and to continue to fire the flames.

RB: Corey, thank you for your time this morning. I appreciate it and talking to you. Thank you.

COREY PRINCE: Thank you.

RB: Let's Corey Prince, he's a community organizer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. To help us understand a bit more about who these right-wing extremists are, I'm joined on the line by Sam Jackson. He's an assistant professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the State University of New York at Albany. His research focuses on right-wing extremism in the U.S. and extremism online. He's also the author of Oath Keepers: Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a Right-Wing Anti-government Group, which comes out today. Sam, hello.

SAM JACKSON: Hello.

RB: What more do we know about these right wing organisations that were in Kenosha and in Portland?

SAM JACKSON: I think it's it's worth distinguishing between formal organizations that we've seen, for example, in Portland, like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys from some less organized movements or even just Facebook groups. My understanding is that many of the actors who are present in Kenosha may not have been part of formal organizations as such, but rather saw an event on Facebook and decided to respond kind of on their own to some extent.

RB: What was their aim going into these towns?

SAM JACKSON: I think there are multiple motivations going on here. Some individuals were motivated by a desire to defend businesses from what they see is as lawlessness and violence coming from protesters. Others present in these areas are, I would say, more antagonistic or or looking to spark conflict. Many of these individuals might have gone to these communities as Trump supporters looking to get in clashes of various kinds with the protesters who they see as threats to America or or as just people who are opposed to Trump, who they want to antagonise. And yet another category of individuals would be those who are motivated by a deep racism within within themselves, within their group, where they are organised around some sort of perceived white identity and and view that identity is being threatened by individuals affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement or with various anti-fascist groups on the ground.

RB: You've said that some people have this idea that violence from the left begets violence from the right, but that there is no equivalence. What do you mean by that?

SAM JACKSON: There's a talking point amongst some circles that the left is engaged in wide scale violence and and the right in America is looking to defend businesses and individuals and organisations from that left violence and may need to use violence to do so. But the fact is, researcher, especially over the past couple of years, has shown definitively that political violence is not evenly dispersed across the political spectrum in the US, especially lethal violence or other forms of violence that target people as opposed to property overwhelmingly comes from the political right in the US. And while it's true that that as members of the left and people from the right engage in conflict with one another, that there's going to be some sort of tit for tat escalation between the two. It's simply not accurate to say that there's a balanced use of violence across the spectrum.

RB: I mean, right-wing militia groups have existed in the United States for decades. How do you see this moment as being different?

SAM JACKSON: Sure, so militias really emerged in the 90s in the sense of what we think of today. And so through the 90s, they they grew, they organised. In the 2000s, their prominence decreased a little bit. And then in around the 2008 mark, with the candidacy of Barack Obama for the presidency, they really emerged in a powerful way. And all through his presidency, they were organised around this perception that the federal government posed a tyrannical threat to everyday Americans and that the government was the single greatest threat that needed to be opposed by individuals like this. Trump's candidacy for the presidency that's really pivoted, though and now these groups see other Americans who would oppose the Trump administration as the greatest threat.

RB: What do you expect the reaction from some of these far-right groups to be if President Trump loses the election?

SAM JACKSON: That's really a worrying scenario. We've already seen the president and some of these groups try to delegitimize any outcome of the election that that cast Trump as the loser. I think we will likely see accusations of voter fraud. We will see accusations of illegitimacy. And we will there's a real chance that we'll see people take up firearms and go into the streets to try to prevent what they see as an illegitimate victor from claiming the office of the presidency.

RB: Sam, I appreciate your time today. Thank you.

SAM JACKSON: Thank you for having me.

RB: That's Sam Jackson, his new book is called Oath Keepers: Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a Right-Wing Anti-government Group. Well, there is a lot of tension in Kenosha, Wisconsin, today in anticipation of President Trump's visit. The president has said that he is going to look at the damage caused by rioting in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake. But some local officials have asked him to stay away. Bakari Sellers is a political analyst with CNN. He's also a former Democratic member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and joins us on the line. Good morning, Bakari.

BAKARI SELLERS: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

RB: Why do you think President Trump is going to Kenosha today?

BAKARI SELLERS: Oh this is a political strategy where the president actually is using violence and carnage, as he would put it, as political currency. And so by standing next to a burned down building, he's able to say that he is a president of law and order. What the president is not doing is probably more important and stands out than what he is. And what he is not doing is meeting with the family of Jacob Blake. What he's not doing is going to condemn the shooting of unarmed black men. And what he's not doing is going to say that Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old shooter who crossed state lines, was wrong. And so he's playing politics and he is someone who ferments this type of violence. So my comparison would be an arsonist visiting the rubble afterwards.

RB: I wonder what you think of that strategy, because some say that the images of rioting and violence and blaming it on anti-racism protesters that could actually help Donald Trump. Actually, I want you to just take a listen to a clip of Greg Walden. He's a congressman from Oregon who is the only Republican of the state's five strong delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. Here's what he said on the BBC World Service yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know, if people would stop turning out every night with guns and rocks. They confiscated two firearms that were loaded. People had knives, rocks. They'd been filling up water bottles, freezing them, throwing them at police officers and then blinding them, or at least injuring police officers with lasers in the eyes. And then you have a district attorney in Portland says, well, we're probably not going to prosecute a lot of those unless you're actually in the violent act or starting a fire. Well, what kind of signal does that send?

RB: So I wonder what you think of that. That, you know, his point that really it's only the Republicans who can keep law and order in these Democrat run states here.

BAKARI SELLERS: Yeah. I mean, I think what you saw yesterday is and I think the American public is smarter than that. I hope they are. You have people who want Democrats and rightfully so, and anyone to condemn, you know, violence and looting that comes along with the protests. And that's one thing. But when if I were to ask congressmen to please condemn the shooting of Jacob Blake in the back, he would stutter and wouldn't do it. Or if I asked him to please condemn Karl Rittenhouse, who, you know, who shot two protesters, he wouldn't do it. You know, this is an end. We have to. This isn't about the protest. This isn't about the images that you'll see of some burned down buildings that we will rebuild. I mean, I'm someone who condemns the rioting and the looting as well. But I also do not want us to miss the point that we have. We have a problem in this country in the way that law enforcement uses deadly force against people of colour, particularly black people.

RB: Do you think that message is being drowned out by the violence that we see coming out of these cities?

BAKARI SELLERS: No, I think it's drowned out by the by the messaging of someone like Donald Trump. I mean, what you didn't hear from the congressman is the Donald is Donald Trump retweeting caravans of protesters who are going into Portland and causing havoc. What you don't hear is any condemnation of that type of violence from the other side. And so you had you with people should expect from their elected officials, is condemning violence from anywhere. We only heard that from one person yesterday, and that was Joe Biden. Is it going to be a winning message? I doubt it. Which is why this morning Joe Biden is still up by eight or nine points like he was prior to the convention, 60 some odd days left. I think the president is going to grasp for straws and do anything he can. But he he doesn't have the necessary emotional attributes to go to Kenosha and be a president that would heal a country. Instead, he's going to still fan the flames of violence.

RB: What is it like watching these events play out in your country right now?

BAKARI SELLERS: Oh, I mean, this is I mean, I, you know, I'm someone who doesn't want the protest to turn into violence, but I appreciate people in streets. I appreciate them lifting their voices. I like the civil disobedience. I like the peaceful protest, because it's really we have issues of race in this country that for far too long gone unaddressed. And, yes, white lives do matter. This is just happening at a moment where we don't have leadership. I mean, it's one thing to have a president, Democrat or Republican, black or white, who understands words like empathy, who has some level of compassion, who believes in justice and truth. And we just have the complete 180 degree difference. I mean, we don't have a Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama, we have probably the second worst president in the history of our country and only behind Andrew Jackson.

RB: Do you think that black lives would be improved with Joe Biden as president?

BAKARI SELLERS: Substantially. I mean, I don't, I mean, it's hard. I mean, that's an easy question to answer, but it's it's really hard when you think about the erosion of your civil liberties and justices and rights under Donald Trump. I mean, it's really hard when you think about all the progress that we've made with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1964-65. And the fact that he is steadily taking away those things and you have the issues and the images of black men and women who are dying in the streets. And so, yes, the answer to your question is yes. Black folk will be better with Joe Biden as president than Donald Trump.

RB: You might have heard my previous guest, Sam Jackson, talk about what he fears will happen if Donald Trump loses the election with these far-right groups. What is your biggest fear as Election Day draws near?

BAKARI SELLERS: Yeah, I'm not concerned about these far-right groups. My concern right now is just making sure everyone has access to the ballot. And if people have access to the ballot and it's a free and fair election, then just keep beat em back. You know, the worse you beat them, the better off this country will be and have an Electoral College victory that is resounding. And I think that once we get to that point where we have that resounding victory, then, you know, Donald Trump will be the forever be the 44th president of the United States. And we can consider that a mistake, that we'll spend a few years, if not decades trying to clean up for.

RB: Good to talk to you this morning. Thank you very much for your time.

BAKARI SELLERS: Thank you. Call me anytime.

RB: That was Bakari Sellers. He's a CNN political analyst, also the author of the memoir, My Vanishing Country. The CBC News is next. Then, I'll speak to Glob eand Mail health columnist Andre Picard about Canada's bet for a vaccine and also fears stoked by rising COVID cases in some parts of Canada, just as schools reopen. And, we continue where we left off yesterday with the CBC's This is Not a Drake Podcast.

[Music]

Andre Picard with the latest on a COVID vaccine and back to school

Guests: Andre Picard

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I can announce that the Government of Canada has signed two new agreements with Novavax and Johnson and Johnson to reserve millions of doses of the vaccines they're developing. Their most recent vaccine tests show promising results. That's why we're making sure that if one of these potential vaccines is successful, Canada and Canadians will have access to the doses they need.

RB: That's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing two new deals with U.S. drug makers developing potential COVID-19 vaccines yesterday. Canada has now inked agreements with four producers of front running vaccine candidates, all with the hope that one will get Health Canada approval and be on its way to Canadians at the start of 2021. Andre Picard is The Globe and Mail's health columnist. He has been keeping us informed on the latest COVID-19 developments throughout this pandemic. Hello, Andre.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

RB: Justin Trudeau says that Canada has now secured access to at least 88 million doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines. How significant would you say that is?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think it's you know, every country around the world is in this high stakes poker game to get vaccine and Canada has joined in. So we're pushing in some chips and we don't know how important that this is. It really depends on who is able to develop a vaccine. So we've now have contracts with four manufacturers around the world who potentially may have vaccine. And if they do, then we'll have a it'll be a little bit ahead in the line, but it won't make a huge, huge difference in the grand scheme of things.

RB: Can you explain to us or why are multiple contracts necessary?

ANDRE PICARD: Because we don't know who's going to have a successful candidate. Right? So there's maybe a couple of hundred groups around the world trying to develop a vaccine. There are some big companies who are leading the pack who seem to be a little more advanced, but we don't know which one of them will work. So we're sort of buying you know, we're putting our poker chip in hoping that this company will be successful. And if so, then we'll have access to some of their product.

RB: What's going on behind the scenes? I mean, how does Canada decide which contracts to sign? Who's on that selection committee?

ANDRE PICARD: This is done internally. There's there's a vaccine committee in Canada that's recommending who we should align ourselves with. And it's essentially that we've gone with the companies that are close in for these three of these three has been getting ready for human trials. So the most advanced ones are Moderna and Pfizer. They've already started these trials and they were the first to be signed contracts with. So you're trying to igure out who's going to have it first so that we can get the vaccine first. But, you know, it has to be said that this makes no sense. Every country doing this around the world, there should be certain kinds of centralized purchasing going on through the World Health Organization and we should be distributing it fairly. But once one or two countries starts doing this, it creates a snowball effect and we've joined in in the poker game a little late.

RB: Based on what we know about the vaccine candidates that Canada is betting on, how and when will we know we've backed the right horse?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, we won't know that probably till the near the end of this year. Of course, the U.S. is rushing, trying to get a approve a vaccine candidate before their election. But realistically, we'll probably have some good data by the end of the year safety and then we have to figure out the effectiveness. And that's a lot more difficult to figure out. That takes trials of 30, 40, 50,000 people and several months to figure out if it'll work. So a vaccine is still a ways off.

RB: When it comes to those timelines, President Trump has previously claimed that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available by the end of 2020. Do you think that's plausible?

ANDRE PICARD: I think it's plausible, but I think the way it's being done is quite dangerous. This, you know, science being told to hurry up in the name of politics. That's not how science works. So the real danger, I think, is that vaccine gets approved before we know it's safe. And before we know it's effective. And that's dangerous because it will stop research on everyone else. Once there's a successful candidate or two, the others will abandon because there won't be any hope of making money. So it's really I think it's really, really important to get a good vaccine rather than a vaccine quickly.

RB: I think we're going to be talking about vaccines for some time to come, but I did want to talk to you about something else, Andre. Because, of course, something that has happened in the last week or so is the return to school, at least in some provinces. It's underway in Quebec. English schools are welcoming students back this week and last week, students in the French system went back to the classroom. How's that going?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think overall, from what we can tell, it's going relatively smoothly. So, you know, it's happening. Everybody wants to, you know, is waiting, kind of with bated breath to see. We won't know really if there are new infections for two or three weeks won't know if there's actually spread in schools. You know, the media is watching this with really sharply, you know. Are there infections? And there's a couple of little reports. There's two schools in Quebec City that have cases. There's one this morning being reported in the Laurentian of a group of teachers. But these are obviously, I think, people bringing it from the community into the school as it's been too early for the infections to have happened in school. So we'll have to see how this plays out tonight and I think everyone's watching it carefully.

RB: In Ontario, four major teachers unions are readying a labour complaint against the province, alleging that school reopening plans do not meet workplace safety laws. How do you see this? Do you think this is genuinely about health concerns or do you think it's more about politics?

ANDRE PICARD: Well I think there's definitely a bit of both. I think there's really questions about safety, especially with class size. We've talked about this before. Class size is really the essential one. You know, the fewer kids are in a class, the lower the risk is spread. So I think the teachers have a really legitimate complaint about packing 30 or 35 kids into a class. Is that dangerous for a teacher? Maybe. But again, it always comes back to how much COVID how much coronaviruses circulating in the community. If there's nothing in the community, there's no danger in the school. So that's where we really have to put our efforts.

RB: It's interesting, I bumped into a early childhood educator at my son's school the other day and she was saying, you know, there we are. We're ripping out the carpets right now. We're ripping out all the soft play spaces in the classrooms to try to make them safer. And then talk to an epidemiologist the next day and she said, it's not surfaces anymore. Why are we still focusing on surfaces? What do you think is the most important thing when we're considering schools reopening?

ANDRE PICARD: Oh, it's definitely the number of kids. You know, keeping the bubbles contained. We know there are going to be cases, that's inevitable, as long as there's coronavirus circulating, but it's minimising their effects. So if one child gets infected say in a school in Quebec City, then what they did is isolate all 80 children in that grade. So that's the way you avoid the spread becoming larger. I think that's really the key element. And you're right. We we have to do the other stuff. Kids have to wash their hands, wear their masks where appropriate, et cetera. But it's really minimising the contact. So if you have, if you don't have contact with a lot of people, you don't have a lot of risk. And that's where the risk comes in.

RB: If you had a school age kid right now, I don't know, maybe you do, Andre, would you be sending them back?

ANDRE PICARD: I'm a little old for that. Mine are thankfully up in university. But I think I would. I think I would sort of measure this. It would depend where I live. You know, I think this what's in your community, you should really be the factor that matters most. So if there's a lot of COVID in your community, say, Edmonton has pretty high rates now, I would really think twice. I live in Montreal where there's a fair bit, but the cases are pretty under control. There's not a lot high numbers. I think I probably would send my kids because I would balance it out against them being locked up for five or six months. And the other factor is, you know, what are they doing if they're not in school? I think we really have to pay attention to that. If kids are all out running around playing baseball with 40 other kids, it's probably better, much better off in school, where it's a controlled environment. So it's a lot of factors. I don't envy parents having to make this decision. It's a really, really difficult one.

RB: It is indeed. Andre, thank you very much. Always good to talk to you.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you, Robyn.

RB: That's Andre Picard. He's the health columnist for The Globe and Mail.

[Music]

CBC Podcast: This is Not A Drake Podcast – Episode 2

RB: This summer we’ve been bringing you some of the best of CBC podcasts. And this week we’re delving into Canada’s hip-hop scene. In this episode, hear how Drake’s seminal “So Far Gone” mixtape became the centerpiece of a digital revolution that fundamentally changed the way up-and-coming rappers would be heard and hip-hop music would be made. Here’s Ty Harper with Episode 2 of This is Not a Drake Podcast.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sirens]

TY HARPER: On January 16th, 2007 , everything was about to change for mixtape king DJ Drama and his business partner Don Cannon

REPORTER: “The Fulton County’s Sheriff’s SWAT team along with Clayton County officials stormed into DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz recording studio and cleaned the place out.”

TY: Drama was at his studio in Atlanta working on his first album... we spoke to him in Atlanta

DRAMA: And I got a phone call from a homeboy who's had a relative that worked in law enforcement in Atlanta, and they were like,’ Yo, I just got a call that they are about to come over there and raid Drama’s studio’

TY: At the time DJ Drama was a huge figure in the hip hop world, helping stars like Lil Wayne, T.I. And Young Jeezy soar to new heights of popularity…

DRAMA: I went to go like move my car from out in front of the studio. I was gonna move it like right to the, to the street or whatever. And I went outside and as I was as I was walking outside, just these fucking black towns [towncars] with sirens, come from all directions and just like, jumped the curb, come, you know, drove right up to me. You know, men with M16s jump out from all angles and start screaming and shit. ‘Get on the ground, don't move, put your hands up, blah, blah, blah.’ And I'm like alright

TY: Drama was told he was being arrested for bootlegging and racketeering under the RICO laws…..

DRAMA: So they took us down you know, in took us two separate cars, me and Cannon and he took us down to Rice Street to the jail. And I remember sitting there and like somebody like you know, even saying to me like, ‘Yo you on TV.’

(SOUND UP OF THE TV NEWSER TALKING ABUT THE DRUGS AND GUNS

What happened was the game changed the minute Drake dropped so far gone the game

Rapper J Cole put it well

10:20 The game instantly changed becuase I have to come and play my best hand too

Here’s Drake from back then in 2009...

Drake on His 1st Mixtape 'So Far Gone' & His Hopes for His Career (2009)

DRAKE: As far as So Far Gone goes, I’m still in awe, I’m still humbled by the amount of people that took the time to download it, listen to it, quote it, put lines in their Twitters and Facebooks and all that stuff. It’s something that I’m very taken aback by because I used to be so self conscious about the strikes against me. Like, coming from Canada and being on a TV show and being like you know super light-skinned , it was like ‘Is this gonna work?’ But now it just gives me a chance to accept that I am something different. I am something new and now I see it as an opportunity to really be like maybe I don’t have to be the next Ye, or to be the next Wayne, I could just be the first Drake ….

To appreciate how Drake — an up and coming artist from Toronto — could catapult his career on the strength of a mixtape, and without a record deal — We need to go back to the beginning... and like hip hop itself --- the mixtape… began in the parks... of Harlem... Queens... Brooklyn and the Bronx.

SOUND UP PARK JAMS CLIP:

DJ MARS: let's say you live in a city like New York you have the Cold Crush and they're doing their park jams, right? And they record it. Then, so... so someone gets a recording of that recording and they let someone else record it. I feel like that was kind of where hip-hop started in terms of how it got passed along,

TY: DJ Mars is the co-author of ‘The Art Behind the Tape’, a book about the history of mixtapes. He’s also a highly respected DJ in his own right... who, among many other successful artists, worked with Outkast at the very beginning of their career. And he knew mixtapes before that word was even a thing.

I don't think the term mixtape was used.

SOUND UP COLD CRUSH TAPE (this is the same one as the park jam above)

I remember as a kid like ‘80, ‘81, someone coming from around away with, you know, I got this Cold Crush tape. and it would be some fiftieth generation copy that. I So by the time it got to me, there's little, you know, eight, nine year old kid around the way It was probably one of the worst renditions of that particular tape that you could get. But that's how we got it.

TY. hip hop wasn’t really being played on the radio... so if you wanted to get your hands on new material… it was these DIY recordings… and as demand grew, the mixtape evolved... from park jam recordings --- to DJ’s mixing and blending tracks together...

CLIP TURNTABLE TECHNIQUES -- SOUND UP - Brucie B tape at Harlem’s Rooftop Club with crowd participation

They came up with creative themes, turntable techniques and customized tapes with shoutouts to local consumers --- the way Brucie B did it on his Rooftop club mixtapes... ~~which~~ this was a way for DJs to differentiate themselves from other DJs... all while elevating the art form.

DJ MARS: A deejay would be in a club and he's spinning and he would have his blank. He would have his tapes with them and he would sell them while he was spinning.

The mixtape economy was independent and underground… and tapes were distributed through street vendors, and mom and pop shops, rather than chain stores…

DJ MARS: [00:19:06] My favorite mixtape of all time would probably be Kid Capri Old School Part 2.

KID CAPRI: “Hold up now!/Old School Part 2!/Yeah, Yeah, yeah/You know the flavour on this one!....They call me the Kiiiiiiid Capri!”

so crazy is while all the other deejays are putting all the new stuff on tape, he made a tape with the with classic R&B. Like he did, like the start of Side 2 was like three or four Michael Jackson joints five joints than he put [Frankie Beverly and Maze’s] “Before I Let Go.”

Maze feat. Frankie Beverly - “Before I Let Go”

Ty: Now Kid Capri is not just passively playing songs back to back on this tape, he’s actually inserting his own creativity in the way he plays those songs. Here, he scratches and manipulates the intro of Maze featuring Beverly and Maze “Before I Let Go” in several ways... he beat juggles the instrumentation... but he also scratches and pulls back the first line of the song, which increases the tension and excitement for his audience, before he finally releases it so the song can play...

[continued from above] that tape taught you a couple of things. It taught a D.J. how to tell a deejay how to play an old school set likenine times out of ten, it was inspired by what Capri did on that tape. But he did it in a fly way, like he's cutting his scratch and he's talking.

SOUND UP KID CAPRI

Gwen McRae - “Funky Sensation” from Kid Capri Old School Pt. 2 mixtape

It physically taught you how to rock the stuff, he said, how he used each r ecord to get into the next record, how he talked in between songs and use the punchlines to his advantage. It really taught you how to deejay.

TY: the best mixtapes showed DJs acting as host, as curator, and as skilful turntable manipulator --- And by playing songs in ways you’d never heard before ... the DJ became the focal point of the tapes.

You had DJs like ‘The Legendary Ron G.’ from Harlem’s Polo Grounds popularizing the blending of vocals over hip-hop beats… think Tribe Called Quest and a Phil Collins record...

CLIP: Ron G Mixes 8

[Ron G mixes A Tribe Called Quest’s “Check the Rhime” with Phil Collins’ “In The Air tonight” ]

You had Doo Wop from The Bronx... a DJ who collected the cream of New York’s hip-hop MCs on the same tape. Countless other notable mixtape DJs like Tony Touch would be inspired by this approach... but Doo Wop’s ‘95 Live’ mixtape did it first...

CLIP - Doo Wop - 95 Live Mixtape (1995)

WOP: “So bow to the mixtape royal highness/ Doo Wop is New York’s finest/DJ slash MC….”

And then you had Queens’ own DJ Clue --- who spearheaded the trend of deejays featuring exclusive, unreleased and brand new tracks from future superstar rappers before anyone else had heard these songs...

CLIP: DJ Clue - Springtime Stickup mixtape (1996)

DJ CLUE:“ DJ Clue! Word! New Jay-Z - “Can I Live”

Jay-Z “”We invite you into something epic…”

Getting your hands on these physical mixtapes… especially if you wanted them early... meant travelling to New York - whether it was 125th St in Harlem, Fulton St. in Brooklyn or --- Canal Street in manhattan

(BEAT)

SOUND UP: Sounds of a bustling city intersection, traffic, noise

the hotspot really was the point where Little Italy and Chinatown connect. That's really where the hotspot of the stores always were

KP: It was the intersection of Mulberry Ave. and Canal Street. That was really the most memorable and most impactful for me in my career based off of what I could find there. It's a pure excitement of visiting there and finding just gems.

TY: Kyle ‘KP’ Reilly grew up in Philadelphia… he's a hip hop fan who would later get into mixtape distribution…

KP: To me, that area was one of the most unique experiences as a as as a teenager being into

They always had the best, you know, replica handbags, the best, you know, DVDs, Ithe fake Rolex and stuff like that. But you know, for me, that was the only place that I could really discover new and exclusive music that I knew that, you know, friends back home didn't know.

TY: And it was there that KP discovered a brand new kind of mixtape...

CLIP: 50 Cent Is The Future by G-Unit

TY: In 2002 a young rapper named 50 Cent and his G-Unit Crew would change the game with a mixtape titled ‘50 Cent is the Future’... And it stood out, not only because of 50 Cent’s bravado, but because it showcased 50 and G-Unit --- and not the DJ who put the tape together….

SOUND UP 50 Cent is the future….

TY: This would be an important development on the road to Drake making his ‘So Far Gone’ mixtape…

But back then G-Unit were an anomaly. Most artists needed a co-sign from a DJ to get noticed . More than just cutting up tracks and hollering over the music... they were playing exclusive tracks that stoked excitement for upcoming projects by popular artists... Labels knew DJs had clout and worked with them to generate buzz for their artists on the streets In fact the labels themselves were supplying the DJs with music to promote their artists.’

[music]

TY: Back in the day I was a DJ who made mixtapes and received promotional records from most of the major labels… it was kind of understood that those same records could potentially make it on to my mixtapes ---- and also help generate excitement for their artists...

So while technically the sale of these tapes wa sn’t really legit...the labels were in on the game….

But the mixtape game kept getting bigger and bigger. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, album-quality mixtape releases from high-profile rappers generated somewhere between $150 to $250 million annually by the end of 2006. And perhaps THE most important mixtape producer ...was DJ Drama.

Here’s DJ Mars again

We went to college together. He and I met one day.

I was walking to class. I was leaving the library, going to main campus. He and I, both with the Clark Atlanta University, approached me ----like, yo, my name's Tyree. ‘I'm from Philly.’ I think he's a freshman at the time. And he was like, yo! I asked one of my peoples who was a student here as well, who I should reach out to in terms of the deejay, Mark. He told me, you know, I should reach out to you.

TY: Drama was already making mixtapes...and selling them on campus...

in between classes, you know, I would pretty much set up on a strip which was, you know, the central location on Clark Atlanta University's campus.

I was I was, I was my own entity. So basically I was making like, a hip hop tape, I was making r&b tape, I was making a reggae tape and you know, amongst that I made I you know, neo soul had became a genre in that time and, you know, it was definitely something that I loved.

Some of the best mix tapes I ever heard in my life came from that series.

TY: And so how does DJ Drama develop into the DJ Drama we know now take us through that.

DJ MARS He basically took the DJ Whoo Kid way, 50 Cent's deejay. He took Whoo Kid’s method of making an artist driven tape. He basically took that same game plan and applied it to artists in the south.

Here’s DJ Drama

So, you know, here I was in the south,, you know, I felt like the South wasn't getting to just due when it came to lyricism. So that was one of the things that I wanted to focus early on on Gangsta Grillz.

TY: DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz tapes became legendary. Initially they featured multiple MCs but he would go on to make something like 150 mixtapes each profiling a single artist… and these tapes were hugely popular

CLIP: Lil Wayne Feat. DJ Drama - Cannon (Dedication 2 Mixtape)

Lil Wayne - “ Cannon”

I feel like we all helped each other's career. I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for T.I. if it wasn't for Wayne if it wasn't for Jeezy. You know, obvio usly those guys early on influentially with Gangsta Grillz as well, I got a shout out Lil John too. I mean, just you know, he's he is the voice of Gangsta Grillz.///

It created a platform for Wayne, where he didn't have to worry about his hook That was just him spitting on another niggas beat and destroying it.

Here’s DJ Mars again

Drama's marketing on his tapes was 10 times out of 10. His mixtape cover looked better than that particular artist's album cover. So his packaging was incredible. On his distribution was incredible. He just saw that.

OK, now the South literally has something to say. I'm going to package their mix tapes in a way that's gonna make them look omnipotent.

(MUSIC)

CLIP: DJ Drama And Young Jeezy - Gangsta Grillz: Trap Or Die mixtape

Young Jeezy - “Intro (Trap Or Die)”

DJ DRAMA:“We make quality street music (Cannon!). Something to ride to. (Trendsetter!) I don’t care what you represent.”

LIL JON sample: “Gangsta Grillz!”

YOUNG JEEZY: “Here I Stand/A grown ass man/All by myself/A grown ass man…”

TY: DJ Drama built an empire on mixtapes like Young Jeezy’s ‘Trap or Die’... and his tapes featured hip hop artists on the verge. Drama became a kingmaker, and it got to the point that everyone who was associated with DJ Drama was guaranteed success… which makes what happened next all the more strange...

REPORTER: investigators say they have collected ~~at least 50 thousand o~~f these illegal CDs from here they will take them to evidence and eventually they will be destroyed. Authorities seized all the companies cds computers, recording equipment money bank statements and even their cars …

I and I remember like, I was very, very calm at the time. You know, like, calmer than then I may have even should have been, you know, because I just figured like, this is a mix up.

And a guy you know, one of the officers with some has some paperwork in front of me says Tyree Simmons ‘you are being arrested for bootlegging and racketeering,’ you know, under the RICO law and I'm just like dumbfounded like, ‘what, like, there's gotta be a mistake.’

Authorities say the two men arrested for making and selling illegal CDS are 27 donald cannon and 28 year old tyree simmons also known as DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon

The first authority we hear from on the Fox News coverage of the raid is not from the SWAT team or the local police… it’s Matt Kilgo --- an official with the Recording Industry Association of America… the RIAA...

These guys are actively advertising online. They’ve got a website that there are advertising from and that’s where you can place your order and that’s how your orders are shipped out

TY: The RIAA worked closely with local authorities to try and take down Drama. In fact, it was RIAA employees who carted away the 80,000 CDs from Drama’s studio for inspection. But the bizarre thing is that this was the organization that represented the very record labels who relied on DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon to promote their artists. This isn’t the first time this has happened either. In Toronto, back in 1999 there was an infamous raid on popular store Play De Record

But according to Kevin Barton, who was head of the urban music department at Universal music Canada, in that instance, it was actually a case of Universal’s legal department not being aware of the relationship between the label and the mixtape deejays

Kevin Barton recounting of Toronto mixtape raid of 1999.wav

[00:01:33] So we had to explain to them that we as the Urban Music Department were well aware that we were servicing these deejays and that some of these deejays were actually putting out these mix tapes. So it was really one of those case of one hand, just not doing what the other were doing, it was on a malicious intent. [00:01:58][25.2]

TY: But its not clear if that’s the reason behind the raid on DJ Drama… here’s how DJ Mars sees it

DJ MARS : Obviously, issue– piracy issues and whatnot with issues between them and RIAA, but I'd never knew what the core reason was. Because for something like that – this is me theorizing – for something like that to happen, someone has to make a huge complaint. Right? So who's the someone that's gonna make a huge complaint? Is the record label. Right? But the funny thing is, at that time in their career, they were– they were the marketing plan for record labels! The record labels wouldn't have a marketing plan. The marketing plan would be "let's pay Drama and them to make a mixtape and we'll flood the street with a mixtape." So it kind of was a contradiction So who made the phone call? It had to have been record LABELS. It had to be– that's– that had to be the igniter, the thing that pushed the envelope, in that back– in that negative direction.

In the end the charges against DJ Drama and Don Cannon couldn’t be proven and were ultimately dropped. But DJ Drama says the impact was huge

It was the day the game changed at that moment because you know obviously like I was the top of the food chain at the time, like I was the mixtape king. Like ‘They took Drama down?’ you know I'm saying. Like, I wasn't known for being a bootlegger or you know. You know I'm getting checks directly from from the labels and you know I'm working on my debut album at for Atlantic Records you know when all this happens ///..other DJs who were making mixtapes was like, ‘Man fuck that, like if they gonna get Drama, nobody's safe,’ so you know, it really was a it was a blow to to the whole mixtape industry at the time.

TY: DJ Mars agrees

DJ MARS: I think it completely stopped the money on the street level. From that point on, from my vantage point, record labels stopped paying deejays to make mix tapes for promotional use that stop.

And so what happens to the mix tape after the raid?

On a large scale, it dried up. I don't think another national mix tape, D.J., was born after that

DJ MARS: So the next thing was, OK, well, the music is still out there. ///How are these kids going to get it? You just couldn't go to the flea market and buy one.So where do you... what's next? Give it away for free. [00:45:03][51.2

(BEAT)

It really just started out as a place to share music with friends locally that, you know, you have to drive to their house or drive, you know, to another space to to see them.

TY: Here’s KP again --- the guy who used to travel from Philly to Manhattan as a kid to buy mixtapes on Canal street. A year before DJ Drama’s office and studio was raided…high speed internet became a thing...and KP started uploading mixtapes online for his friends

KP :Basically, you know, ripping the whole file to your computer and then individually tracking it out into MP3s, individually, naming the files, scanning the artwork. Nowadays, the I would take five minutes to do it where back then it was a, you know, maybe an hour or two job.

TY: You didn’t have to travel to new york anymore to buy mixtapes Now they were free and available to anyone in the world with internet access. . KP called his mixtape website ‘DatPiff.com’... and when DJ Drama was arrested in 2007 --- KP saw a spike in traffic to his site...

I would say almost every A&R at every label, probably part of their job was to search DatPiff and see, you know, what's trending, what is hot this week? What are people talking about?

RAWIYA: this new method of delivery for hip hop meant that you could start you would start seeing a lot more mixtapes where people because the music was being distributed for free, didn't have to spend as much resources on procuring beats.

TY: Rawiya Kameir is a culture writer and editor

So you because, you know, these weren't always commercial, these weren't always albums that were for sale. It meant that people could produce music at a far faster clip than than they previously did. It also meant that the audience for the music seemed to have grown significantly. it was growing. It was sort of morphing culturally. It was reaching new audiences. It was absorbing and also dictating some of the cultural trends that we would come to see over the subsequent years.

TY:the raid removiedthe traditional mixtape DJ from the equation,.Now merging hip-hop artists were the focal points .They dominated the digital mixtape game. Unsigned artists looking for a break figured they had nothing to lose by uploading their tapes for free.

TY: And as mixtapes migrated online... there was a demand for digital sites that could help fans navigate all this new f content … these influential hip-hop music blogs formed a coalition they called ‘The New Music Cartel’.

TY: So what does this all mean for the up and coming Toronto hip hop artist Drake? Well with the old way of distributing tapes becoming obsolete... blogs, MySpace and message boards were going to be critical to Drake’s rise.

HUSTLEGRL: My name is Karla Moy, AKA hustleGRL, and I am a visual designer-slash-DJ.

TY: HustleGrl is the creator an of AllThingsFresh, the early influential Drake fan website...that she started when she was VERY young…..HustleGRL moved to Canada from the Republic of Congo in 95

HUSTLEGRL: Well, just like any other immigrant parents, they wanted me to become a either a doctor or a lawyer, any sort of job like that. But what they didn't realize is that when I was about 9, my dad instilled a little art pill or whatever in me.

HUSTLEGRL He was in school, like, learning how to build websites. And when he would come home and do his assignment, he would do with us. So I learned how to code HTML. I was like 8 or 9 years old and that really, really, really stuck with me. So they actually instilled that in me and didn't realize it. But also try to instill other things. But, just sticking with graphic design and– and being able to do web design, like, that's definitely something that they instilled in me.

TY: HustleGRL’s interest began way back in the early days of the Internet, before social media like Facebook and Twitter...If you remember waht the internet looked like in the 90s there were lots of GIFs and banners and rotating images I would look up tutorials on Google – and this was before YouTube so this is text tutorials with screenshots. And I had a... I started making my own banners, and one day someone asked me to design one for them. I was 12 by that time and they paid me $5 on PayPal, and that– that's what jumpstarted my career. Just getting paid. At... being 12 and making $5. Like, that's a lot of money. [chuckles]

TY: So your parents– your parents didn't know?

HUSTLEGRL: I don't think they knew. Coding is really when my parents were like, what are you doing on the computer? And how do you explain coding to them? Like, all my dad knew was like the basic HTML from like 1997, you know? And this is early 2000s, the internet has drastically changed and they just don't understand it anymore.

TY: Things were changing. Music was fairly available on the internet... and HustleGRL dived right in... building websites, designing mixtape art… she was just 14, but was already part of that first generation of digital natives who knew how to brand themselves and build busines ses on line and ’that's how she met Drake...

CLIP: Drake - The City Is Mine

DRAKE: Yo, the city is mine (which one?)/T-O-R-O-N-T-O/D-R-A- K-E that's me/You know how the story goes/Pull up, range rove, yo chick, wanna roll/And I play myself in the stereo

TY: Do you remember when Drake, the rapper, first came on your radar?

HUSTLEGRL: Drake the rapper. Great question. Drake, the rapper, I remember listening to the radio. I was listening to Flow and I heard the track "City is Mine" and it was for me what caught me and what I thought was cool what was that he was spelling out the city in his chorus. And I'm like, "Oh, this is pretty cool! Like, he's repping for Toronto. Who's this person?" So, you know, the presenter says, "Ohh, new track from Drake! "City is Mine," and blah blah blah. And you go and you Google to see who Drake is, you're not finding too much information. But, you know, you Google "Drake City is Mine" and you're like, "Oh! This is Jimmy Brooks from Degrassi. He makes music. That's pretty cool. So from that song is what got me to start an online fan club for his music.

TY: And why that name?

HUSTLEGRL: Ahh, well he was already shouting out "All Things Fresh" in his music, and ATF, like that was his crew before OVO and I had no idea, like, what to call the website.

CLIP: Drake - “Comeback Season” from Comeback Season mixtape

DRAKE “You don't know me, you don't know us/We go by the name of A-T-F/And any previous affiliation/They know to hold they tongue and I spare 'em humiliation”

He didn't have a clique. I didn't want it to be like "Drakelicious" or any of those stupid [laughs] names that keep with– so, like... It's so funny what fansite names used to be at the time. See, I didn't want anything like that. I'm like, "Hey, what about something that he always mentions in his songs? All things fresh. I'll just name it that."

TY: So by 2009, when Drake was getting ready to release ‘So Far Gone’… he was confident that he didn’t need to do it the traditional way… it would be fans --- tastemakers really --- like HustleGRL, who would help him spread the word...

RAWIYA: Once upon a time, you know, women and especially young women and teenage girls in particular were and I suppose they continue to be derided as stan's and sort of written off as hysterical, you know, unserious esthetics, obsessed sort of participants of music culture.

RAWIYA: people like HustleGRLwere really instrumental in creating these new narrative for artists that weren't receiving fair play in the traditional or mainstream music press. So you can sort of see them creating these avenues where fans could directly interact with artists, but could also act as independent sort of arms of publicity and marketing and branding, even on behalf of artists like Drake who emerged into this sort of new goldrush territory of the Internet.

TY : This is a remarkable consequence of the digital disruption that helped Drake… the gatekeepers for music in general up to this point had been record execs, DJs and MCs --- who were mostly men... but now it was much easier for everyone to join the online conversation...

and it’s something that back in 2009 he was highly aware he could use to his advantage...

CLIP “Best I Ever Had”

“Best I Ever Had” emerges as a breakout hit from the mixtape and goes on to become one of the songs of the summer of 2009... eventually reaching n umber 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the time it was the rare Billboard top 5 single to be released from a mixtape. And incredibly, later that year an official retail version of So Far Gone was released by a newly-signed Drake — while it was still available for free online. It sold 73,000 copies in one week.

It’s the turning point in Drake’s career.

CLIP: sound from within the concert

On May 13th, 2009... Drake's 'Homecoming' tour touched town in Toronto...

CLIP: host welcoming everyone to the show

This was Drake's first major tour as an artist --- the very first of many, many sold out Drake shows in his hometown… and it was a pretty monumental night for many Toronto hip-hop fans --- including myself...

CLIP: Outdoor street sounds, people talking in a lineup

I remember looking at the line outside when I got to the venue... and seeing local artists, deejays, promoters, journalists --- basically a who's who of Toronto's music industry --- now these are people used to walking right past the line and right into whatever event they're attending... movers and shakers… patiently waiting with everyone else to get into the Drake show...

Why? Because they knew how big of a moment this was, and they wanted to be a part of it....

And once we all got in, and the show began, it didn't take long for everyone to be really thankful they were here to witness this moment… and what a moment it was...

CLIP: Drake - Live @ Sound Academy

Drake called this his 'Homecoming Tour', and on the heels of the success 'So Far Gone' --- that's exactly what this show felt like...

But for those that understood this moment for what it foreshadowed, they would've also seen this as Drake's return, before leaving for good --- because the Drake we would meet later, would be a very different Drake --- but also because everything --- all of us --- mainstream hip-hop included --- would be very different after 'So Far Gone'.

That's that tape literally signified the changing of the guards like this, a new era.

At the start of this episode J Cole talked about how So Far Gone’ marked the end of the old mixtape era…and changed his approach…..According to DJ Drama, Drake and J Cole were part of a whole new generation of emerging hip hop artists people like Wiz Khalifa, Kendrick Lamar, Wale, Big Sean and Kid Cudi making mixtapes in a digital era.

DJDrama: they were taking different approach and they were not necessarily having a Gangsta Grillz or even having a DJ on their tapes but they were still making mixtapes. It was a new street album, you know. We're not we don't necessarily have to go to Canal Street anymore because all this shit lives online so we're going to release this tape digitally.

TY: DJ Mars

DJ MARS: I think the advantage now is it gives artists, like it always did, gives artists freedom to create how they want to. And the– the– the– the– the digital side of it allows that artist to put himself in front of the entire universe because everyone has access to it digitally. So... I like where it's going. I wish the DJ was was back in the mix, but I get it. Those days are over. An artist doesn't need a DJ. He just needs access to a popular website and he needs a studio to record, and then he can upload his music and boom.

RAWIYA: Oh, it was totally a game changer. I don't think I think that it was probably. I think that looking back, it's probably one of the most important mixtapes in the history of mixtapes in the sense that it was, from my perspective, the first mixtape that was really just an album. And it sort of challenged the. The you know, it sort of made mixtapes a technicality rather than a guiding sentiment. You know, like it was a mixed tape in the sense that it was. Accessible for free. But it was really more of an album in its in its tone and its sort of cultural impact. And in and in the way it landed in the music space.

TY: According to Rawiya What’s remarkable about So Far Gone...it's not just that Drake released the mixtape as an unsigned artist, on his own blog, it's not just that it sounded like an album, its not just that the mixtape was available for free anywhere in the world….it captured the spirit of discovery of all good mixed tapes have…but it also set the stage for how we listen to music today

RAWIYA: I mean, I think that, you know, while much of this was happening, the sort of borders between people were were were being erased so much in the same way that someone like hussle Girl could have the ear of someone like Drake. It sort of reflected the fact that someone like Drake could, you know, find Peter Bjorn and John song and turn that into a big hit. So a lot of these sort of previously assumed borders and boundaries between people and and genres and cultures were were were being eroded.

When you listen to So Far Gone, it's such a clear left turn from what he was doing before. In the sense that he really was emblematic of the dissolution of genre. The dissolution of culture barriers that we had grown so accustomed to. ///And it was sort of a predictor of the sort of Spotify culture mash up that we would come to see as a staple of playlists in the years to come.

Mixtapes were always supposed to be about curating the coolest new music, the latest innovations. We've tracked how DJ's were those curators, then replaced by music blogs and savvy fans and artists themselves taking control of their own music. Today you could argue that it’s all been replaced by an algorithm...that digital streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have killed the mixtapes. But a case could also be made that many compelling aspects of mixtapes are embedded in these streaming services today. After all, Drake is Spotify’s most streamed artist of the past decade. So perhaps the mixtape served its purpose. It helped take hip hop from park jams in new york to become the world's most dominant music genre.

[Music]

RB: That's the program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam first met by chance in a New York City classroom in 1997, months after Salaam was released from prison for his alleged part in the Central Park 5 jogger case. Now, they’ve published a novel about the experience of a young Black boy who is sent to prison for a crime he is not guilty of. They will be speaking to Tom Power about their book, “Punching The Air.” Finally, we just heard about Drake’s 2009 mixtape, “So Far Gone,” and what a game-changer it was. We’ll leave you with a song off that mixtape, “Let’s Call it Off.” I’m Robyn Bresnahan. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: “Let’s Call It Off” by Drake]

The Current Transcript for September 1, 2020

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Anti-racism protesters concerned about increased presence of far-right militias at U.S. demonstrations

Andre Picard with the latest on a COVID vaccine and back to school

CBC Podcast: This is Not A Drake Podcast – Episode 2

Drake on His 1st Mixtape 'So Far Gone' & His Hopes for His Career (2009)

Sept. 1, 2020 episode transcript

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