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Ben Westhoff
178 Plays5 years ago
Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist who writes about culture, drugs, and poverty. His books are taught around the country and have been translated into languages all over the world.
His new book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic is the highly-acclaimed, bombshell first book about fentanyl, which is causing the worst drug crisis in American history. It has received glowing reviews and was included on many year-end best lists. Westhoff was interviewed about the book for Fresh Air and Joe Rogan, and published an excerpt in The Atlantic. Since the book’s publication, Westhoff has advised top government officials on the fentanyl crisis, including from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and the U.S. State Department.
His previous book Original Gangstas: Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and the Birth of West Coast Rap is one of the best-selling hip-hop books of all time. It received raves from Rolling Stone and People, and a starred review in Kirkus. S. Leigh Savidge, Academy Award nominee and co-writer of Straight Outta Compton said it "may be the best book ever written about the hip hop world."
Westhoff's work has appeared in the Library of Congress, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Playboy, Vice, Oxford American, Pitchfork, and others. He's been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, Religion Newswriters Association, Best Music Writing, Best of Southern Food Writing, L.A. Press Club, and the Missouri Press Association.
He has been interviewed as an expert commentator for CNN, BET, A&E, and ITV, and is the former L.A. Weekly music editor and Voice Media Group Senior music editor. He's a contributor to the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and his 2011 book on southern hip-hop, Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop was a Library Journal best seller.
https://www.benwesthoff.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing creator and host Ken Vellante editor and producer Peter Bauer This is Ken Vellante with the something rather than nothing podcast and we got a special episode This time we got
00:00:27
Speaker
guest host, Sam Vellante, my nephew, he goes to school down in Arizona State, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, also a hip hop fan and has his own hip hop radio show. And we will both be speaking to Ben Westhoff. And I encountered Ben's work on a book called American Gangsters,
00:00:52
Speaker
based on West Coast hip-hop. He's also done a book of investigative journalism called Fentanyl Inc. Now it's also delved into more hip-hop with the book on what's known as Dirty South.
Ben's Early Influences and Writing Passion
00:01:09
Speaker
Ben, I want to welcome you to the program. Hey Ken, thanks for having me.
00:01:15
Speaker
And Sam, it's a great pleasure and an honor to have you here as well. I just want to, if you just say a little hello. Yeah. Thanks for having me on as a co-host. Super awesome. Absolutely. All right, Ben. You're into a lot of different things. You're a great investigative journalist. You like your hip hop. What were you like when you were younger? Did you like writing? Did you like music, hip hop? What was, what was going on?
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, I was trying to be a writer from before I could write even. I used to dictate stories to my mom and she would write them and I would draw the pictures and then choose your own adventure books were really popular when I was a kid. So I was trying to write my own versions of those. I got into hip hop in junior high and I remember so like naughty by nature and um,
00:02:11
Speaker
run DMC and groups like that, and then more in high school with the explosion of gangster rap on the West Coast and Snoop Dogg's Doggy Style was the biggest album in my school and NWA, Dr. Dre, The Chronic, all that stuff and the culture too, like Menace to Society, Boys in the Hood, all this stuff coming out of
00:02:40
Speaker
Compton in South Central was really popular in my high school despite the fact that It was in st. Paul, Minnesota. Oh And st. Paul. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah, I am Sam's Sam's dad Chris my brother Chris and I listened a lot of hip-hop when we were younger and just probably like the step before that with fat boys run DMC
00:03:09
Speaker
African bombata, you know that kind of early In infusion and I gotta say It's been great. It was great listening to your book on American gangsters, which I Yeah, it's actually called original gangsters. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I keep saying Americans original. Well, yeah the original gangsters. Thanks. Thanks for that. Thanks for that Ben
00:03:33
Speaker
And so you, uh, you kind of became part of, uh, you know, you at the high school and at that time, were you seeing like, like in St. Paul, we were seeing kind of like how, uh, hip hop was making inroads to, you know, to, to, to, to white kids or suburban culture and city culture.
Impact of Hip Hop on Suburban Culture
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, um, you don't really know how this stuff is happening at the time, but.
00:03:58
Speaker
after doing all this reporting on NWA and interviewing Dr. Dre and Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg and all these people, I learned they were actually making targeting, trying to reach the Midwestern years and white kids and stuff like that. And, you know, I grew up in St. Paul, the city actually in my school was, had this like reverse busing situation where, you know, the kids from white neighborhoods were actually bussed into
00:04:26
Speaker
the city school. So it was, you know, like half black and half white. And I think I got a lot of exposure to black culture there. And that sort of informed a lot of the writing I would come to do. Yeah. And thanks. Thanks for that background. Hey, Sam, just to bring you in and to give a little bit of context, we're talking about, you know, how we what we ran into hip hop. What about you, Sam, in the sense of like,
00:04:54
Speaker
where you was influencing you on listening to hip-hop? Well obviously I'm from a different generation but I find it very interesting how the culture was able to shift to the suburbs and more specifically whiter youth and I was just wondering what inspired you then to start the writing process and researching on that rap subject the West Coast
Ben's Hip Hop Journalism Journey
00:05:23
Speaker
real formation of their style of rap? Well, I was never a music critic, you know what I mean? I wasn't the guy who had the deep thoughts on the albums and had strong, strong opinions. I always loved music, but I came about it as a journalist. And when I had my first job here in St. Louis at a weekly paper called The Riverfront Times, I was kind of trying to figure out what my beat was.
00:05:53
Speaker
And we had the freedom to write about whatever we wanted. And this was just after Nelly had blown up, who you may remember, Hod in here. And he was like the biggest thing in St. Louis. And then all these other rappers started getting record deals. And so I started writing about this really vibrant emerging hip hop scene in St. Louis. And it gave me a chance to
00:06:18
Speaker
speak with people I never would have spoken with otherwise. And I, you know, these were stories about people, you know what I mean? And as opposed to like a rock band where the members oftentimes they did grow up in the suburbs and they came from affluent families, almost all of these rappers who I profiled had these really interesting stories, backgrounds coming through adversity and
00:06:45
Speaker
And it was a journalistic niche that I found. And I kind of stuck with that through my book about Southern hip-hop called Dirty South. And then I became the LA Weekly Music Editor in 2011. And so that's when I really had the opportunity to interview, like I said, all my childhood heroes. And I talked with Ice-T.
00:07:11
Speaker
you know, the surviving members of NWA, including MC Ren also. And I got to go to Compton and South Central and really investigate the roots of this music as it pertains to the socio kind of political environment at the time as well. So there was like
00:07:37
Speaker
the crack era, the Bloods and the Crips, the Rodney King beating, the LA Riots, and all of this stuff influenced this West Coast gangster rap. Ultimately, what my book, Original Gangsters, does, it's not just a book of music criticism, it's about the environment that these rappers came out of and made this music that changed the world.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, very interesting. I just want to go back a bit and you mentioned the Dirty South and how the southern style of music developed. So were you listening to like T.I., Gucci, Lil Wayne, people like that? Were you able to like interact with their circles or how did that work? Yeah, those are two of the three of the main characters in my book. But it's funny you mentioned them because when I was reporting Dirty South, they were all in prison.
00:08:34
Speaker
you know, and also Lil Boozy, who is also one of the biggest Southern stars. So he was in prison, T.I., Lil Wayne, Gucci. Gucci has been in and out of prison, you know, for years. But what really attracted me to that scene was like, this was the post Tupac and Biggie era, right?
00:08:59
Speaker
And so that's another thing I wrote about in original gangsters was the Tupac and Biggie rivalry, the East Coast West Coast beef and how it ended in their deaths. So after that, you know, hip hop was really kind of freaked out. Everybody was worried they could be next. It just it became agreed upon that the music had just gotten too violent. And so there was kind of the pendulum swung in the other direction. And so that was the
00:09:26
Speaker
the Puff Daddy era, like the shiny suit era, they call it. And so suddenly everything was super commercial. And, you know, there were these big these radio jams and and a lot of people, though, that felt that hip hop kind of lost its grittiness in this era. And then the Southern response was kind of to to take all of these these guys who really weren't radio ready, they weren't like
00:09:56
Speaker
sort of groom for the mainstream, but they gained popularity through, you know, a real grassroots movement. And so these were guys, you know, in cities like New Orleans and Atlanta and Memphis and Houston, they were selling their albums out the back of the trunk and they, you know, the record labelers weren't looking for them down there.
00:10:21
Speaker
And these were guys who really rapped about their real lives. And in a lot of cases, they had came from backgrounds with a lot of poverty and violence. And so to a lot of people, this music just felt really fresh and authentic. Yeah, that's very interesting to hear.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's definitely important to me because that's a bit before my time. But even now, you see that Atlanta is probably the biggest city in hip-hop. And so it's very interesting to find the roots of how that started. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when OutKast was first coming up, there wasn't really a hip-hop presence much at all in Atlanta. But there was starting to be more R&B themes
00:11:12
Speaker
hit-making music, you know, TLC, and then you had stuff like Another Bad Creation, kind of kiddie hip-hop, and people thought OutKast was such a breath of fresh air because they didn't try to be like East Coast rappers or West Coast rappers. They used their own kind of Southern influence and Southern style to make something that was all their own.
NWA and Hip Hop's Artistic Legitimacy
00:11:41
Speaker
one of the things in your research in listening to original gangsters that that impacted me or like my understanding was NWA has been a big band for me like you know forever and I had thought of them as a little bit more monolithic like that was any NWA and like they were like some like
00:12:09
Speaker
tight group, like in my head, almost, you know, like, like Public Enemy or something. But in listening to your book, it seemed pretty clear that there's a mix of, you know, kind of forethought, chance, accident and very, very, very large personalities, of course, within NWA, EZ, EMC, Ren, Dre,
00:12:31
Speaker
and Ice Cube. And I also appreciate in your book with the break with Ice Cube in his work with the bomb squad and telling some of that story. Was that something going into it as far as what NWA was that you knew or by saying knew that these were just kind of like big individuals put together for a certain amount of time? Is that a decent takeaway?
00:13:00
Speaker
I didn't have any idea, probably like you, about who NWA really was. When I was little, I was kind of scared of them. I thought, you do not want to mess with these guys. But as I learned, Easy E was really the only one who was the real gangster. He was a crack dealer. He was very heavy in the streets.
00:13:28
Speaker
And it was in his image that the group's image was captured. And so Dr. Dre, you know, was in a song and dance group called World Class Wrecking Crew before NWA. And if you've seen the movie Straight Outta Compton, you remember him wearing the, you know, kind of like sequins and makeup. And, you know, he looked like Prince, really. A lot of guys looked like Prince in that era because he was just so huge.
00:13:58
Speaker
DJ Yellow was also in that group, World Class Wrecking Crew. Ice Cube was just a kid. Ice Cube was actually rapping against gangs. They didn't use drugs at all, didn't drink. They were kind of straight edge in their own ways, a lot of the members, but they sort of coalesced around Eazy's idea of rapping about what was really happening.
00:14:27
Speaker
in the streets. And that proved to be a successful formula for them. Yeah, and I know, I know, for me, there's been this there's been this piece around hip hop of
00:14:45
Speaker
you know, how it's appropriated in the sense of like, what, you know, you know, is it real music and things like that? You know, is it art? I can tell you, when I was in high school, I took a music class and we were supposed to diagnose, like we bring in a song and kind of go in front of the class. Here's the bridge. Here's the breakdown, all the stuff.
00:15:06
Speaker
And I was actually specifically forbidden to bring in any hip hop or rap. And that's only that's the only music that I knew like the teacher. I mean, how many how big of a battle you can have with your teacher at, you know, 16 or whatever. So I went to the Eagles and brought something in there. But, you know, it is these clashes that I found when I moved from the city to, you know, basically white suburb and kind of encountered
00:15:33
Speaker
moved from a great acceptance of hip-hop or rap at the time to kind of this rejection, which leads to the question I wanted to get, which is one of the bigger questions is, did you find that in your research of people or the general perception of denigrating rap as not being music or not being art and connecting that
00:16:01
Speaker
what your idea of what art is. Yeah, definitely. There was a lot of anti hip hop sentiment in the eighties. You know, at first it wasn't really kind of didn't have the dangerous reputation. You know, at first early hip hop sounds a lot like disco. And if you heard the song rappers delight, for example, the first big hip hop song
00:16:26
Speaker
And it wasn't until Run DMC's, you know, Sucker MC's that it kind of got that, the more hard edge sound. And then Run DMC played a show in Long Beach in I think 1986 where there was, it was like a big riot there and people got hurt. And so hip hop gradually kind of got this different reputation. But at the beginning, people just thought it was a fad, you know, and kind of like disco had came and gone.
00:16:56
Speaker
and people thought hip-hop was going to be the same way, but it really showed that it had staying power. The other aspect was the sampling, and sampling is an intrinsic part of hip-hop. It's a music that's based on a whole bunch of other types of music, cutting and pasting. For some people, they didn't see that as art. They saw it as stealing and appropriation.
00:17:24
Speaker
And I think that's ludicrous. I mean, going back to Andy Warhol and much earlier than that, art has always kind of appropriated other styles and other genres. And to me, art is basically presenting something in a new way, thinking about and presenting something in a way that's unique and interesting.
00:17:52
Speaker
hip hop, that's what hip hop is all about. It's a, it's a populous music that comes from a repressed culture where, you know, people didn't necessarily have access to all these expensive instruments and, you know, places to practice them, but they, you know, groups in the Bronx who had access to a light pole to take electricity to power turntables.
00:18:20
Speaker
and a box full of records could throw a huge party. So I think that the art component has been there all along. Yeah. And I think you mentioned Warhol, and I thought of his quote, and I thought it was really particular to almost hip-hop. And when he said art is something you can, is what you can get away with. I think, you know, there's an element of that too within hip-hop, you know, getting away with things, pulling together sounds, patching it together as far as it's, you know,
00:18:50
Speaker
It's early inception, but it's like rock and roll, right? What is rock and roll? It's a mix of soul, folk, blues, et cetera.
The Opioid Crisis in Hip Hop
00:19:04
Speaker
Hey, Ben, I know you did a book called Fentanyl Inc. as well, and I know in chat with Sam
00:19:12
Speaker
He had a question related to some of your other investigative journalism. And I believe your more recent book, Fentanyl Inc. Yeah, so I was wondering, I think you have a great perspective with both your knowledge of the music industry, as well as your knowledge with these drugs and all the crisis going on right now.
00:19:34
Speaker
So in the past couple of years, we've seen the deaths of Mac Miller, Lil Peep, Juice WRLD, a lot of these rappers. And I was wondering what if there should be, if you think that there should be more pressure on record labels, or if there should be something done within the music industry to stop the crisis hitting that specific area? That's a really good question. I have a sub-stack newsletter. It's called Drugs and Hip Hop.
00:20:03
Speaker
We have been writing about these rappers who died from opioids and fentanyl. It's a big, big problem. I don't think it's cool at all to rap about pills. You hear rappers like Future and a lot of other people that are talking about Xanax and Valiums or Oxycon or whatever. Often these pills,
00:20:33
Speaker
are, especially when you get them on the black market, they're cut with fentanyl. They're pressed to look exactly like the actual type of pill, like a Xanax, but it's made with fentanyl and it can kill you instantly. Kids today don't realize that any pill or any powder that you get on the black market could have fentanyl and kill you.
00:21:00
Speaker
Hip-hop has gone through different phases of different drugs that had sort of glamorized and then you know in the early days like People didn't even like weed, you know, dr. Dre famously said he doesn't smoke weed because it's known to give a brother brain damage and that was before the chronic and And that kind of all shifted in the 90s But you know weed is is a safe is a safe drug. No one's ever overdosed and died from weed and I have no problem with
00:21:30
Speaker
With that, in the 2000s, it shifted towards lean a lot, which is codeine permethazine cough syrup, also known as drang. That's a very dangerous drug also, that's an opioid. A lot of well-known rappers have died from drinking it, most famously Pimp C from the group UGK.
00:21:56
Speaker
the sound was popularized in Houston because the lean slows down your perception and the Houston hip hop was very slow as well, popularized by this chopped and screwed style from a producer named DJ Screw. Then in his past decade, it's really shifted towards pills. I think a lot of people have the perception that because these are
00:22:27
Speaker
pills that are sold as medicine, that they have to be safe. When I was coming up, you could just go to a party and if someone handed you a pill, you could take it and you'd probably be okay, but that's just not the case anymore. I don't think rappers should glamorize it at all. I don't necessarily think there's a way to stop it with laws or
00:22:55
Speaker
I know that whenever record companies try to get in the business of censoring musicians, it ends poorly. But I think there should be a stigma attached to glamorizing pills in your songs. Yeah, I would definitely agree because it was very interesting that you brought up Future because many of these young rappers and fans
00:23:22
Speaker
both talk about how he inspired them to start lean or he has mixtapes called dirty sprite encoding crazy. I think that's very interesting. And so what do you really have any ideas on how to combat this or anything like that? No, I don't. You know, a lot of people over the years have complained about the violence in hip hop and
00:23:49
Speaker
along with the violence in video games, for example. And I'm certainly not in favor of glamorizing, murdering people in songs, but that's something that's been a part of music for as long as we've had music, really. Murder ballads has been part of folk music for time, memorial, time in memorial.
00:24:16
Speaker
But I don't know. For some reason, the pills stuff just strikes me differently. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that more people are dying from fentanyl than any drug in history. 2020 is on track to be the worst year for overdose death rates in America by a long shot. And so many of these well-known rappers have died from fentanyl and from pills.
00:24:46
Speaker
that it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. The reason I brought up the violence was like studies have shown that it doesn't really, listening to a song or playing a violent video game or seeing a violent movie doesn't really lead you to commit violent acts per se, but for some reason it strikes me that
00:25:13
Speaker
When people do hear about taking these pills, it makes it more likely that they'll do it. And one reason I say that is because just like you were saying, Juice World said that he was inspired to start drinking lean after hearing Future talking about it. And then he, you know, died from opioids, you know, just a few years later. So I don't know what to do about it, though.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think Juice WRLD is a very interesting and specific case because he debated himself if he really would have been as good of an artist if he didn't have the drugs. So it's very interesting to see where these guys end up. Another example is Lil Wayne. He was drinking the syrup really heavily.
00:26:06
Speaker
And around the time of the release of his album, The Carter III, right? And so everyone loved that album. He was just sort of critically, he was peaking. And then he got arrested and he had to give up the lien. He had to like, you know, go to dry out in jail. And then his next album, The Carter IV, like really sucked and everyone said it was because he had gone off the lien. And so, you know,
00:26:35
Speaker
Artists, for as long as there's been art again, have been using substances to find inspiration. I just think that there's a lot safer things you can do. LSD, for example, has never killed anyone so long as it's real LSD. I just think that using opioids for inspiration is just so destructive. Right. You also see these artists really can't win because
00:27:04
Speaker
As you said, like they said, Lil Wayne on the Carter Four went off the lien and that's why he was bad. We also see people make the arguments that once Chief Keef started the lien, he was bad. So it's a really tough situation for these artists. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, the drug isn't, you know, writing these songs. These are things that are coming from within you. And you've ultimately got to be confident in yourself. That's what I would say.
Complex Personalities in Hip Hop
00:27:35
Speaker
And Ben, one of the things I wanted to mention about the book, Original Gangsters, that I really appreciated was he did a, really for one of the few times that I've seen it in writing, very much humanize the issues that are in hip hop and humanize Tupac in a way
00:28:02
Speaker
that I didn't quite know before, such as consciousness around, you know, Black Panthers with, you know, with him growing up and kind of the political edge to it and the complicated nature of his personality, which had that kind of like liberation minded piece to it, but also a lot of anger, you know, like a lot of anger that that that people connected to. And I found that with the members of
00:28:30
Speaker
NWA in part about Snoop Dogg. A question I had that is really kind of fascinating me about hip-hop over time, and I think you see it with Gangsta Rap, Eminem, etc., is kind of like the pseudonym for the pseudonymous authorship, right? That there's a different character that is in the lyrics that it is
00:28:57
Speaker
you know, not the rapper themselves. In getting into that dynamic, in meeting the real rappers and encountering the personas, do you think that's been a way to present very unsavory type of situations by using, you know, it isn't me, it's that character?
00:29:25
Speaker
And do you think it's been an effective way to tell a story? There's lots of artists who do that. Yeah, they sort of inhabit this other mind frame. I think Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, who is sort of this more provocative character. And there are lots of examples. I mean, Dr. Dre, you could argue,
00:29:52
Speaker
had a different persona on his entire career. In real life, he is not someone who enjoys smoking weed or lives a gangster lifestyle at all. I think that people compare it to gangster movies like The Sopranos TV show or
00:30:15
Speaker
the godfather i mean nobody expects that al Pacino is like that in real life and i think it's a fair comparison when it comes to gangster rap you know these are characters and they're they're using the characters to sort of get at bigger truths and when it's done most artfully and interestingly it does that you know it's it's not just sort of about gratuitous violence but it's about you know poverty and how it
00:30:45
Speaker
leads to violence and how, you know, in the absence of a sort of a police force that you can depend on, that there's a social order kind of determined by these kind of rogue elements. And I think the best gangster rappers really get that across. Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, of course, within the podcast, some larger theoretical questions. And this one's kind of dig in a little bit more about you. Your interests are fascinating. Investigative journalists, you get deep into your work. And back behind that is a larger question is, in your opinion, who or what made you who you are?
00:31:41
Speaker
Wow, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you know, I think I'm a contrarian by nature. And whenever people are saying the conventional wisdom, I just have this desire to say the opposite. And so it's very annoying for people like my wife. But I think it really is a great sort of instinct to have or when you're an investigative journalist, because so I think
00:32:11
Speaker
There's so little actual journalism out there in the news we read every day. To me, to do journalism, all you have to do is pick up a phone and call someone and you say, why is this? So much of the news we read is just sort of other people's reporting that's sort of reheated and presented. But when you dig in just a little bit, when you start talking to people, when you go into archival material,
00:32:39
Speaker
when you really start bearing down, it's very often the case that the truth is not the way it's being presented. It's often the exact opposite of the way it's being presented. And I try to just sort of clear my mind, I try to take away my preconceptions, and I just really dig in.
00:33:01
Speaker
you know, if you would have told me that the members of NWA like loved prints and they wore makeup before they formed one of the hardest gangster rap groups ever, I never would have believed it. But, you know, truth is stranger than fiction, as they say, and I just love really bearing down and getting to the truth of the matter because it's usually so interesting. Yeah, and the
00:33:30
Speaker
in your research, and I enjoy investigative journalism and deep research like you've done in the areas that you covered. And I'm sure there's a lot of things that you're learning and connections that you make through that project. Did you find that when you got into
00:33:58
Speaker
the war, the story of the battle of the West Coast and the East Coast, which, you know, there were real violence and there was real conflict and real hurt. Do you think that how it showed up in the media was kind of
00:34:25
Speaker
exaggerating what was going
Media and the East Coast-West Coast Rivalry
00:34:27
Speaker
on? Or do you felt that it was actually, you know, at par with how the media was reporting it? I think there was a lot of really good journalism actually happening in the East Coast, West Coast era, particularly in Vibe magazine, and also the source and some others. But and I tend to take the side of journalists, you know, who are trying to really present stuff as it's happening. But
00:34:55
Speaker
But at the same time, you know, there were a lot of elements at play. There was, you know, people trying to sell records, you know, the record labels, the artists themselves. And there's this idea that controversy generates record sales. And so there there was an instinct to sort of play stuff up undoubtedly at the same time, you know,
00:35:17
Speaker
It's a little bit of a misnomer to call it an east coast, west coast beef, I think, because really, at least in the beginning, it was just Tupac. Tupac was single-handedly instigating this thing and taking all these shots at Biggie Smalls and Death Row. At the beginning, especially, Biggie just wanted no part of this. Tupac had been his mentor and learned a lot from him.
00:35:42
Speaker
When it came to Tupac's shooting, the non-fatal shooting in 1994, Tupac really blamed Biggie for either having something to do with it or maybe not knowing about it and not warning him. And even if Biggie did maybe hear something about it beforehand, his own life may have been threatened. He couldn't say anything.
00:36:05
Speaker
Whatever the case, it's far from clear to me that Big E really betrayed Tupac in that way. Tupac had been shot, he'd been put in jail, and he was on a rampage. He got tied together with Suge Knight, who sort of had his own interests, and they didn't necessarily align with keeping Tupac safe.
00:36:36
Speaker
But another one of these sort of historical corrections involving Tupac and Shugnight is that a lot of people say it wasn't really Shug who was egging Tupac on. It was Tupac who was egging Shug on, and he's the one who kind of made Shug into this.
00:36:58
Speaker
sort of um you know violent kind of menacing figure that he came had that he became but whatever the case um tupac really got things going he tried to pull snoop dog into it snoop dog didn't want any part of it um and he sort of made the east coast west coast a thing kind of almost single-handedly yeah i think that's very interesting um with the whole east coast west coast beef
00:37:28
Speaker
But everyone seems to have their own theory about what led to Tupac's death. What is yours? Well, I go into it in great detail in original gangsters, but I think it's basically the Occam's razor theory, as I would call it. You know, earlier that night, Tupac and this group of people he was with at the Tyson fight
00:37:54
Speaker
got into this heated argument with this guy from the Compton Crips and Tupac hit him and they beat him up. It was all captured on video camera. And then this guy, Orlando Anderson, went back to his friends who he'd come to Las Vegas with and they were staying in town. And then I think they came and killed Tupac. It was a direct provocation.
00:38:21
Speaker
And it was that same day. And so there's a million theories, and a lot of them are really complicated. There's this big sort of police conspiracy. But to me, the most likely theory is probably the correct one. Yeah, I'd like to thank you, Ben, for Occam's razor. The simplest explanation might be the explanation, right?
00:38:51
Speaker
Exactly. I had a question related to, you know, you're deep into the research you've done on Gangster Rap. And I always thought that the rap, the early rap that wasn't Gangster Rap, always has this kind of, there's this deep, like playful aspect to it.
00:39:15
Speaker
But I don't know if there's ever been a deeper, more extensive treatment of that, which isn't as the gangster rap or the more sensational. Have you found, in general, that there's been good research? I mean, the Disco 3, who became the fat boys, and some of the stuff with UTFO, Roxanne, Chante, kind of like
00:39:40
Speaker
you know, more playful banter. Has there ever been a, you know, good treatments in your opinion around some of that stuff? Uh, yeah, the, the pre-disc, the, the pre-gangstrap era, um, really interesting time. There's this book called The Rap Attack by David Toope. T-O-O-P I might recommend. It's kind of hard to find. It's out of print, but that gets into the first years of hip hop and goes through the,
00:40:09
Speaker
the mid-80s, I believe, that probably would be some of the stuff you're talking about. But you know, there's the movie Crush Groove, which I'm sure you've seen. That's a really fun encapsulation of that era with the Fat Boys and Ron DMC and Curtis Blow and all that. And yeah, I love that era. I mean, it's so fun. It's kind of a more kinder, gentler period in hip-hop. And, you know, there were battles.
00:40:39
Speaker
too, but they were more kind of friendly in spirit, and the artists who engaged in them were friends, you know, before and afterward. Yeah, the break dancing battles, as opposed to other means of settling, settling conflict. Crush Groove just recently celebrated its 30, 30, no, must be longer than that. Maybe 35? 35, yeah. 35 year anniversary, I think maybe in October sometime, and I
00:41:09
Speaker
I'd watched it recently, Beastie Boys in there. I think Rick Rubin was in there. And at the end, the human beatbox, one of the fat boys, a bigger member, doing the caterpillar at the end of the movie, which I seem to have forgotten. I didn't think he could do that. Amazing stuff. A rap attack. Well, it's good. You can find out-of-print books. And I appreciate that that input.
00:41:36
Speaker
With regards to any, I ask this question in general, like does art have a responsibility and role in addressing racism in applying to hip-hop? Do you think that it has an historic role or responsibility to deal with racism? I think historically that hip-hop has helped
00:42:03
Speaker
you know, diminish racist attitudes in the US to a really strong extent. I mean, I believe that a lot of white kids, that hip hop was their first exposure, in some cases only exposure, to black culture. And I think it had the effect of, you know, making people realize that
00:42:26
Speaker
you know, rappers, you know, African American people were not really much different than they were themselves. And, you know, that the skin color is really something that's not that big a deal. You know, I don't necessarily think that politics, that rappers or any artist should be required to talk about politics. And I think that
00:42:56
Speaker
you know, artists have a responsibility to talk about greater truths. And I think if you get, oftentimes, if you get caught up in the politics of the moment, you're going to miss out on bigger truths, you know. And I'm certainly a fan of, you know, protest music and like NWA's F the Police, you know, I think is the greatest protest song of all time.
Hip Hop's Role in Activism
00:43:22
Speaker
But I definitely don't believe that artists have a responsibility.
00:43:27
Speaker
or a requirement to address current politics? Yeah, I think hip-hop has always played an important role in activism because you see the early music and even throughout the 90s when Tupac was talking about changes, you see Polo G and Lil Baby making songs today like The Bigger Picture and Wishing for a Hero and addressing today's social climate.
00:43:55
Speaker
Do you think that while the art has changed, we went from the people talking about selling drugs to the people doing drugs. Do you think hip hop will always be a constant in music? And right now it's the most dominant genre. Do you think it will stay that way for a while? I think that hip hop is going to hold on to its purge. It's such a youth centered music and it seems like
00:44:25
Speaker
rock and roll is kind of aged along with its fans, but it seems like hip-hop really just keeps innovating and maintaining as the music of the youth. Nothing lasts forever, but if you would have told me that hip-hop would be coming up on its 50th anniversary, if you told people that I had its inception, a lot of people would have never believed it.
00:44:54
Speaker
We're speaking with Ben Westhoff, investigative journalist, and we have Sam Vellante here. And leading into the big question, Ben, why is there something rather than nothing? That is a good question. I think that's like the main question. I like that you titled your podcast that I think this is the thing we should spend most of our days thinking about.
00:45:22
Speaker
But unfortunately, I can't say that I really have anything. I mean, it's interesting to think to me to think about like, there were billions and billions of years before I achieved consciousness. And presumably, there will be billions of years after that. And, you know, how did how did the stars align? Literally, so that there's there's something it's
00:45:51
Speaker
It's not something I have any idea about why, but I do think it's something that's worth appreciating.
Existential Musings and Conclusion
00:45:58
Speaker
It's worth something that should inform your daily decisions. I mean, when you think about like, am I wasting time right now? Am I doing something frivolous? So many things had to happen for me to get to this moment in time
00:46:21
Speaker
you know, if you think about it that way, I think it helps your kind of fears melt away. It's inspiring, you know, and that's what I try to keep in mind. Yeah, and I appreciate the discussion around, you know, these philosophical questions and about art, because I think it's really behind, you know, the work that you do and some of the hip hop artists you've
00:46:50
Speaker
covered in some of the perceptions. I think there's a lot of deep thought about society and about philosophy in the music, and I really appreciate your comments. Ben, for listeners who are listening, I want them to connect with you, your work, and your books. Could you let listeners know where to find you, where to find your works, anything along those lines?
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, you can just Google my name, Ben Westoff, and it'll take you to my website, which is just benwestoff.com. And my newsletter is there. It's called Drugs and Hip Hop. You can find out information about my books. And, you know, I really appreciate your talking to me, Ken and Sam, about these issues, and I appreciate your kind words.
00:47:46
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's been a great pleasure for us as Sam and I were talking before getting on the show. I think our excitement was pretty equal. I grew up, my parents, they listen to a lot of classic rock.
00:48:06
Speaker
you know, rap, as it was known, when I was growing up became, you know, my music and Sam's dad, Chris, you know, came our music and do, you know, breakdancing was part of the culture. So it was a big part of it. And it's been great to kind of talk about, you know, even talking about the history with Sam here and you and myself, the range of history and of hip hop and the different type of artists
00:48:36
Speaker
I really appreciate the, you know, the research that you've done and, you know, pulling out the the conclusions and the research from from talking to, you know, the primary artists that have been involved. I tried to get into hip hop on the show. I had Sean Wynn in an early episode who's in a band called the Praetorians. And coming up, I'm going to have Nikki Lynette, who's a Chicago hip hop artist and also a mental health
00:49:04
Speaker
advocate, and I really look forward to talking to her, but I want to thank you so much, Ben. I'm actually really looking forward to getting into your recent work of fentanyl, Inc., and some of your additional research on Dirty South. A deep thanks to you, Ben, for your time, for your efforts in writing these stories.
00:49:32
Speaker
And thanks, Sam, down in Arizona State, embarking on his journalism research work and practice. Thank you so much for everything. Absolutely. Well, great talking to you guys. Take care, Ben. Thanks again. OK, take care.
00:50:04
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.