The Science of Hip Hop with GZA (Part 1)

Your ideas about rap music may change when Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice “spit verses” with rapper GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan and hip hop expert Dr. Christopher Emdin.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to another edition of StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History. And as is common, I have with me my comedic co-host Chuck Nice. Hey. Chuck, you baby. How are you Neil? Welcome back. Thank you, my friend. Excellent. Always good to be back. Excellent. Always good to be back. You know, whatever my show is on, you come in and mess with it. Or mess it up. We're not sure yet. Jury's still out. So, this week, we're gonna be talking about hip-hop music. And we're gonna be featuring my interview with Jizza. Jizza. Jizza. I can't tell you how disturbing that name is. We get back to that name in a minute.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In addition to you, I gotta share the stage with you here, okay?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  If you don't mind.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Christopher Emden.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  M-E-M-D-I-N.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're assistant professor up at Columbia?

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Yes, I am.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. And your title is what? What do they call you?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Assistant Professor of Science Education.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science Education.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  And Director of Secondary School Initiatives in the Urban Science Education Center.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, nice. So you care about just folks in the inner-city getting educated?

• 1:31Speaker 01

  That's the majority of my work, yeah. Educated in science.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what do you do outside of the majority of the work?

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I listen to hip-hop.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright. And that keeps you... So that flushes out your...

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I mean, most of it, right? I listen to hip-hop, you know, I check out your YouTube videos, you know, I watch some HGTV, a little bit of everything.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you learn how to tie a bowtie.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is tied, that's not clip-on?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me check it. Nice.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Now I gotta readjust, you know, mirrors.

• 2:01Chuck Nice?

  Looks good, looks good.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, this is, because the bow tie is the emergent style in hip-hop performers, I'm told.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  It is, it is in some. You'd be surprised, you'd be surprised.

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  Is there a hip-hop artist that wears a bow tie? I'm trying to think of one that...

• 2:15Speaker 01

  You know, they, you know, they wear them on their award shows. I was gonna say Fonzworth Bentley, but he doesn't quite classify as an artist, you know? But the look is becoming more trendy, so I might have to move to something else.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm honored that you get so dressed up for this show. So Jizza, founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, right, right?

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  Shaolin represent.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, that's how that, that's how that rolls. And so you, so you've used hip-hop to, to help educate people? Is that how you, how you come at this?

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So research-wise, I, you know, I get into classrooms and my goal is to engage urban youth of color in science. And so that meant changing curriculum, it meant training teachers, it meant a whole bunch of different things, and I wasn't getting the results that I wanted. And I decided to sort of step into the dimension of interrogating youth culture. And that, hip-hop just came out of it.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  And so they were so deeply engaged in hip-hop culture, so completely disengaged in science, so I had to find a way where there was some intersections between hip-hop and science.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So science, it's not just learning, it's science?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  No, science in particular. So there's, there's learning, and that, that learning part is powerful, but the connections with science is even more powerful.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  So there are connections between hip-hop and science?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Millions, billions, trillions.

• 3:25Chuck Nice?

  Like, like the Doppler effect of a speeding bullet?

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a section.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  It could be a lesson, it could be a lesson. Nothing, nothing is sort of outside the realms of possibility here. So if, if they wanna know about bullets, then, you know, hey, we can have that conversation.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Doppler effect, there's a high-pitched frequency shift as it comes towards you, and then a low-pitch, uh, shift as it emerges. So it goes... Like that. Unless you're hit, then you only hear that.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Well, you know, rappers, rappers actually try to create, so Kanye West has his verse where he was like, you know, I'm shooting and I'm like, like he makes the sound.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got the doppel effect in the song.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  In the song without even knowing it. And so those are the kind of things you explore, right? So I'm like Kanye West makes that noise. That's, that's the sound of a bullet. Does that connect to anything? Is that arbitrary? And that becomes, you know, the way to spark conversation.

• 4:21Chuck Nice?

  Nice, nice.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So JZA, how do you, it's like capital G, capital Z, capital A, and you said the name's gotta go, you said.

• 4:29Chuck Nice?

  Well, it's a weird, I'm, listen, I know there's RZA and JZA and.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out. Let's find out how the man got his name.

• 4:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because my, my record show, his, his, his born name was Gary Greys. So, yeah.

• 4:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure his parents are very happy he went with JZA.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't critique JZA's name, knowing that there are like a million people in Wu-Tang also.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, so you gotta watch.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  So, you know, I love, I love the name JZA.

• 4:57Chuck Nice?

  A wise statement.

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's, let's find out how he got the name.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My guest this week is JZA.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  What's up?

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I, did I say that right?

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Yes, you did.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me hear you say it, just so I can confirm it.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  JZA.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said it right.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  You said it right.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All capital letters. GZA. Uh, but that's not the only moniker you had.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Genius, Justice, Born Gary. I had nicknames growing up. I had different emceeing names. Names I used as.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All MCs have to have a name. It's not, my name is MC Joe.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Well, nowadays, well nowadays, some, some guys are using their name.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Jim Jones.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, I can't do that. I grew up here in MC this and MC that. It can't be just.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Because MCs are more like superheroes.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, no, they were, yeah.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  They had to have those names.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had the power of the party. I mean, they controlled. So you were an MC?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was your MC name?

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Divine, MC Justice, Gary G, Baby G, Gangsta G.

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But right now?

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Jizza, Genius, Jizza.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the Genius, where'd that come from?

• 6:03Speaker 03

  RZA, Cousin RZA, and ODB.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  They named me that years ago. We had this crew called the All In Together Now Crew. It was myself, RZA, and Dirty. And he was the scientist, RZA was the scientist, Dirty was the professor or the specialist, and then they named me the Genius. But I didn't want the title because people expected so much from it.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  So I didn't want it. At one time, I called myself the Professor. I took Dirty's name and put it on the fly, and he was mad.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how important is identity in hip-hop? You don't hear James Taylor say, "I'm James, I'm James in the teens." It seems unique to that culture.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  I really think that it isn't, though. People express identity based on where they are at a certain point in time, right? So, human beings have, you know, they have their core identities as who you really are. You have your role identities, that sort of identity influx. And then you have like, you know...

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Identity influx?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Influx, right? So depending on the role you're playing at a different time. Yeah, you have it. This is why he has so many monikers. And this is why MCs have so many monikers.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he had different emergent selves coming through.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  You know, so sometimes he's a genius where he's just dropping signs.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Psychologists call it multiple personality disorder.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  A lot of MCs have multiple personalities, man.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  So I think, you know, the naming is in being able to call forth different pieces of myself in different points in time.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:30Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense, absolutely. It's like you identify not only with yourself, but your circumstance.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so as they move forward, they accommodate the needs of the moment and whatever name that requires. But it is interesting that many of them change their name.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think James Taylor was born Arnold Schmednick, and then he changed it, right? I mean, so the notion of changing the name also enables them to match the moment.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, be a different person.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more with our interview with Jizza on StarTalk Radio.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm with my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck, you too? Yes, I do. Chuck Nice Comic. I'm Chuck Nice Comic. Somebody else was Chuck Nice, apparently. Believe it or not, there's like 28 of them. I couldn't believe it. Okay, I'll find you Chuck Nice Comic. And I've got with me Chris Enden. Yes. Professor up at Columbia University. Thanks for coming in to do this. Thank you. You're an expert on urban culture and making, trying ways to educate a secondary school population is great. Yeah, making connections. Making connections and in particular a science connection. Yeah. And we're celebrating my interview with Jizza, the hip-hop master, Jizza, who is founder of the Wu-Tang Clan.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wu-Tang Clan, I get that G in the right place there. And I chatted with him about what role science might play as the muse of an artist, in particular of a musician. Let's find out what he told me. You've got my whole astrophysics vocabulary oozing out of your rap lyrics. And so, how does that happen? I love it. I just want to understand it.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  It's just an interest in science and planets and the universe.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, well, there are plenty of people who are interested in it, but it doesn't infiltrate?

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Well, I'm a, you know, I'm an artist first. I'm a writer. I write mostly music.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  I'm working on novels and scripts now.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Yes, I am. But I always thought as an emcee, you know, growing up, it's always been about being lyrical for us.

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Well, I grew up in Brooklyn. I'm born in Brooklyn, lived in Staten Island. I lived in all the boroughs.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Staten Island?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Yes, Staten Island. Shaolin.

• 9:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Staten Island?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  We call it Shaolin. Wu-Tang. But, you know, it started from back then. It was always about being lyrical and writing the tightest lyric and sharpest lyric and being witty and also incorporating things around us and anything we can incorporate into music. Like, I'm not a sports fan at all, but every now and then I always incorporate things about sports.

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're reaching into pop culture and there it is?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's there for you?

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all right, but were your earliest songs that way?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Some of the songs, some of our lyrics, we went there years ago. I remember one time, RZA had this rhyme. It was about conception, being born.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  When conceiving and it started, it was a line about um when my mind flashed back to a eerie mood when I was just a sperm cell in a fallopian tube. He was about thirteen then.

• 10:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a great, that's a great.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  So.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so in, in Brooklyn, if you start taking an interest in the universe and there are other rhymers, rappers, you had to be a little weird for doing that, isn't that right?

• 10:59Speaker 03

  It depends, it depends on, well, it's, it comes off as not being normal to most.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wasn't normal doing it and I wasn't even a rapper.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Well, it depends, well, it depends on how you deliver it, you know, if I'm delivering it in a, in a way where I'm like, Earth is the third planet.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  And the sun shines light.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't play.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in Brooklyn, not in, okay.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  But if it's in a way where you're saying, my universe run like clockworks forever, my words are pulled together, sudden change in the weather, the nature and the scale of events don't make sense, a storm with no one in, you're drawn in by immense gravity that's going mad, clouds of dust and debris moving at colossal speeds, they crushing MC. So you speak about the universe and planets, but you still incorporate the element of MCing.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the mood and the.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  And the mood.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the feeling.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  The feeling, yes.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you've embraced the universe, a lot of cool vocabulary there. I, I make a big deal of the fact that our vocabulary is very accessible, a galaxy, the dwarf, a black hole, big bang, and a lot of them are even one syllables. I'm guessing that that makes it easier to rhyme and easier to pulse into a lyric.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rather than the words of geologists or.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Of course, you know, um Rakim, I usually quote him on some of his lyrics, and he had this line years ago, and this was in the eighties, where he said, "I'm the creator of the alphabets, now let's communicate and I translate the situation straight. No dictionary is necessary to use, big words do nothing but confusion to lose." So.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Half short, twice strong.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  The only difference is if I use the word Nova, I'll be speaking about a star, unlike the average rapper who will probably be talking about a car.

• 12:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's great. That is fantastic.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From fallopian tubes to exploding stars.

• 13:01Chuck Nice?

  Exploding stars, except you know, the rhyme about the fallopian tube. That isn't ectopic pregnancy, to be honest. Experiment in fallopian tube, you don't really want that as a woman.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  He was 13. He was going there.

• 13:15Chuck Nice?

  But he went from there to like, you know, basically cosmic storms.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:19Chuck Nice?

  Which a lot of people don't even realize that there are cosmic storms.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Storms on Saturn, on Jupiter. Jupiter has the big giant red spot. It's a storm.

• 13:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You call it a red spot because that's what it looked like to the first people who named it. But you look a little closer, you study it, it's a cyclone larger than the planet Earth.

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Raging on Jupiter for 300 years. Mars has dust storms. Dust storms kick up and you can't see what's happening on the surface.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where the aliens can redistribute their...

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. That's when they cover their tracks.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this thing about science getting into pop culture leaders, I'm curious about that. What, have you seen that?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm just, I'm just like...

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you've seen it, but have you...

• 13:59Speaker 01

  The little lesson you just described just now, if you introduce that to a young person, they would be like, "Oh, man, I gotta spit a verse about that." And so, so what...

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you say spit a verse?

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Spit a verse, meaning I have to write a rhyme and then perform it.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To say spit a verse from someone wearing a bowtie, I just have to...

• 14:16Speaker 01

  You know.

• 14:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to cover the bowtie so I can hear you correctly.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Now, now you're forcing me to want to kick a rap, you know, spit a rap on here. I may have to do that to prove myself.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a game, street cred here.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  So, street cred.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  But Jazza made so many sort of insightful points in that clip. The first of which was, you know, a lot of people do hip-hop pedagogy or think that rap pedagogy is, you know, like, "Kids like rap, let's rap." And they have the kids create raps or they perform raps, and it doesn't work. And the reason why it doesn't work is because it's, and it's just like what goes on in school already to rhyme.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  And that, that doesn't work. And so the distinction between, you know, saying something that rhymed and being a prolific MC, which requires analogy, metaphor, drawing connections, weaving stories.

• 15:03Chuck Nice?

  Cross-referencing.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  Which means you have to learn and know some knowledge here, some knowledge here, in order to access that, to bring it together.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I was, I was working with a young person once and he, you know, we get into the classroom and I want him to learn about water. And he's like, "Okay." You know, I'm teaching a lesson, he's like, "Yeah, your lesson is alright." So I said, "You know what? You're a rapper." You know, spit a rap about it. So he starts rapping and he's rapping about everything but water. He's like, "I'm fly, I'm sick." I'm like, "You had one line." He's like, "You know, I flow like water and by the way, I'm flying, I'm sick." And so I was like, "Well, you know, this is not quite gonna, it's not gonna work. Go home."

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause he's not actually making it work.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  He's not making it work. So I say, "Go home, read the textbook, come back and write a new rhyme." He comes back in the morning, he's like, "Yo, it's type hard to spit a 16 about H2O." Right? And what that means, you know, I'll interpret. It means that it's challenging.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  It's challenging for me to be able to write a rap about water if I'm really gonna understand the concept of water. So I need at least a week to do it justice.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or in other words, you need a week to learn enough about water to then know how to reach in and... And pull out the themes out of it to really, to really make it a real rap. "When water gets cold, it gets less dense. When you freeze it, it floats on water." It was.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  You got a rhyme there. I'm gonna kick you out of my psych for that, for those bongs.

• 16:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's more a coffee house than it is. Cause I'm so cool, I'm water ice.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  You know, for you, we'll just snap and we'll just make it like a poetry thing. So it doesn't have to necessarily rhyme.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so like slam poetry.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Slam poetry.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Slam it out.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, okay, so that's so, so you bring to a point I hadn't appreciated even during my interview with Jizza, that the more pockets of knowledge you have command of, the more creative you can be as a rap artist. And of course, you need the metaphor. And the more capacity you have to even make metaphorical references.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  The more prolific the MCs, the more complex the lyrics are. And the more complex the lyrics are, it's based on the ability to make connections that the layperson can't see, which is inherently scientific.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm. I like it. That was good. That worked. So you got a quick something here? I got 30 seconds.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  30 seconds?

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spit.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  "I'm a physicist, lyricist, spittiness, ridiculousness, so witness the ignorance I dismiss." I have to do that first so people know I can rap. Then I can, then I can get into the topic.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you can talk to them.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Right. Cause I need that some authenticity, right? So, I love Newton and plus Einstein. I like Einstein, cause Einstein's mind is like mine. His formula was E equals MC squared, which is weird, cause me is your favorite MC squared. And so what I did there is like Einstein the formula, but if I just said that would make no sense. So I have to make a connection between the formula E equals mc squared to the fact that me is your favorite mc squared. And I can say, you know, E is energy, M is mass, E is the speed of light, which is a constant.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I were mc, I would so be mc squared.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more with my interview with Jizza and Chuck Nice, Chris Emdin. We'll be right back.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You know, you can find us on the web at starTalkradio.net. We're also in the Twitterverse at StarTalk Radio. And of course, on Facebook, you can like us there, StarTalk Radio. By the way, StarTalk appears in three media now. We're on broadcast radio, we're on the Nerdist channel on YouTube, you can find us there. And of course, you can download our podcast at any time from our website or from iTunes. I've got with me in studio Chuck Nice tweeting at ChuckNiceComic. Chuck, you got a show on HGTV. HGTV. We were chatting about it at the break. You go into, it's called Home. Home Strange Home. That's creepy. Yes. You go into people's homes and just talk about it.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm the strange part in the Home Strange Home. You find weird homes and just talk about it. And basically people show me around their weird houses and it's actually very cool. I'm not inviting you to my home. The cameras might be, like in 60 Minutes, the cameras show up. Absolutely. But I'll look forward to that. Nah, it's gonna be a good show. Fridays HGTV. Fridays on HGTV. Chris Emdin, thanks for coming to this to comment on Jizza's clips that we have. And you tweet at Chris Emdin.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  At Chris Emdin.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  E M D I N.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  E M D I N.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tweet educational insights, I guess.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  So I tweet education, I tweet hip hop, I tweet science, I tweet social commentary.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm going there.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  And bow ties.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And bow ties. Let the radio audience recognize that the man is wearing a self-tied orange bow tie. So in my interviews with Jizza, we talked about the role, certainly the role that media thinks violence plays in hip-hop. And it's always played up, perhaps more than it actually needs to be or should be, or perhaps it's not even representative of most of the hip-hop that's out there. It just makes a better headline. I brought all this up with Jizza, and I wanted to get his reaction to this because that's like the... you can't just sweep that under the rug. It's out there.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's find out what Jizza's reaction to when I brought up violence in hip-hop.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then, there's all the songs that were violence is a part of it. Is there something missing in the uninitiated listener? They think it's just all violence. But of course, there's somebody trying to emote in those lyrics, right?

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, it depends on how you interpret the lyric. I mean, sometimes I run into people who say, "Well, 36 Chambers got me through school." And then I go back and listen to the album. I can't really... I don't see how. I mean, I know it's great music, you know, according to fans and those who's listened to Wu-Tang for years, but I don't see what they're seeing. So it all depends on how you interpret the message.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, good art allows the listener, the viewer, to personalize what they hear or see, right?

• 21:03Speaker 03

  Right. Because you can't just take a... you know, I look at it like this sometimes. If they say, "Wu-Tang has got me through school." And then automatically it pops in my head, "Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to F with." I'm like, "How did that get you through school?"

• 21:18Speaker 03

  You know, sometimes it's the first thing that...

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, get them to explain. Maybe, I mean, maybe they... it was an escape.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  But it was a certain... you know, the timing and all that when the album came out, whatever they were going through, they were able to relate to the majority of the songs anyway. So as a whole...

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. It was the total philosophy and package that represented. Personally, I don't... I'm not with the schools of thought that say people got violent because they listened to a song. People violent, they're violent, right?

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. But still, it's nice to have some hope in your art.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if the art is only about violence, I don't, where am I gonna, what do I reach for?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  You reach for the peace. You reach for the music without the violence. And like I said, I don't think it's, it's just the whole thing about violence. It's just the way you're talking or telling your story. Because most rappers have this thing where they're from the streets and they're telling their story. And this is how I grew up and everything I say is real. And I'm not a fake drug dealer. I actually sold drugs and this is what I'm giving you, but it's the same story. It's like watching the same movie over and over and over and over and over. You don't want to see it anymore. You don't want to hear it. Change it.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Story's been told.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Story's been told.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bored with it.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  In that way.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that way. Because you're not, you've spoken of violence in your songs, right?

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, definitely.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what does that do, what role does that play?

• 22:49Speaker 03

  It's just part of the story.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  It's just part of the story to get your point across, but it's not violence in a way where it's gory or I gotta speak about, you know, the screwdriver pulling your brains out and landing all on the backseat.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  It would probably be done in a way where you don't see the screwdriver. You don't see the brains. You just see blood coming through the door and hit, you know.

• 23:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very Hitchcock.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Try your own imagination.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hitchcock forces you to fill in the blanks. Shows you the edges of the violence.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  That's how it should be.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, screwdriver through the br- I missed that.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Hey man, all I know is right now I want to kill somebody. That's all I know. I don't know why, but I have a need to shoot somebody.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We only got like 20 seconds left. Is there, Chris, real quick. Do you think there's a cultural bias against rap that you don't find against other expressions of violence in the American culture? Like evening television, like everything else?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  I, I think that certainly does exist and I think that in response to that, rappers pick up on what is sensationalized and realize that that's what gets attention. And so what could normally be a thin slice of the culture becomes exaggerated.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you. That, that's very perceptive. When we come back, more of my interview with Jizza and we learn about violence growing up and what impact that can have on the creativity of an artist.

• 24:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, a natural physicist here at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I also serve as director of the planetarium there. Come by, check us out when you're in town. I've got Chuck Nice with me, comedian Chuck Nice. Love having you on the show Chuck.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  It's always good to be here.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we've got Chris Hemden. Chris, great that you dress up for the show. You know, I had to. Jacket and bowtie with a matching hanky in your jacket pocket. Pocket squares. Pocket squares. Gotta do it. That's right. I got you here because we're slotting my interview with Jizza. Jizza, and we talked about his life as a rap artist, and I wanted to get behind his modern life and find out, because we were trying to probe sort of what his background is. Did he grow up in a dangerous neighborhood? Did that influence? I just didn't know. And so, let's find out what he says about his background, and find out how that influenced his creativity. Check it out.

• 25:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your life, how much danger were you exposed to as a kid? What kind of neighborhood? Were you in like a pansy neighborhood or tough neighborhood?

• 25:28Speaker 03

  You know, I grew up in a hood. It may have been tough for outsiders, but it wasn't necessarily tough growing up in it.

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a perceptive point, because it's all you know. It's just where you grow up.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  But, you know, I had working parents. You know, I never missed a day without eating.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  I didn't live in poverty, but we weren't rich or anything like that. I grew up in the normal urban cities, the hoods.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were there any violence?

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Every now and then. I mean, I've grew up with a lot of people that's not living now, who was killed, but that was the path they chose to take. I mean, we all grew up together and we learned right from wrong.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think most people grew up in neighborhoods where no one dies. Right, I mean, so for you to say, "Well, it was sort of, you know, there's some violence, some people don't..." I mean, you say that so casually, but that's not a... I mean, not many people can say that.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Because in some neighborhoods, it's normal for people.

• 26:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  To, you know, put those things to happen.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My father had those stories, right, people.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  But, um, I think any danger-

• 26:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody got shot just for wearing the wrong shirt.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, see, I didn't, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood like that. I mean, I lived in Jamaica, Queens, at, at a time where they had gangs.

• 26:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  In the seventies, Seven Crowns, and that was a big gang out there, but it, it, I don't think it ever affected me. And, you know.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you're outside of it.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  I think all the dangers-

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd do better to not be a part of it.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  I think, yeah, I think the dangers that I came across, with dangers I, I put myself into, like stupid stuff you do as a child, like walking on the rooftop.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, on the, on the, I know, on the ledge of the rooftop.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Yes, on the ledge of the rooftop, or playing in elevator shafts. You know, I even have this rhyme, or one of my songs where I start off by saying, "Picture blood baths and elevator shafts." Because I've known people that lost limbs and died in elevator shafts, and we used to play in them. So those were like the dangers.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so some of that ends up in your lyric, but then we, we hear these other rap songs where it's, what do we do? I mean, so who's, who's got the biggest influence on the next generation?

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Rap.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I agree to that, so now, you got the portfolio of lyrics in the rap, in the rap repertoire.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, I got you telling me about the universe, and where, I'm with that. But you're not the only rapper out there, so, so in the end of the day, who's gonna win? Who's, who's gonna win?

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Those that make timeless music and timeless lyrics are gonna win. And others will fade fast.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe is the most timeless thing we know.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  And this is one of the longest spinning records on airwaves.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's certainly spinning, and it actually has grooves.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  Exactly, put a needle on it.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's these, most people, you know, you look through a telescope, it looks like it's just a flat disc, but it's actually very men, it's just like thousands of separate rings in here. That's, that's my favorite planet, that's why it's here.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never thought of it as a place for the music of the spheres.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scratching in the cosmos.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  I think of a record when I look at that.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah?

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There he goes.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. I love how you just told Jizza that he is lost to the universe.

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't say that. So how do you parlay a violent background as an educator? You know that some kids have a violent or not nurturing background. How do you parlay that into science education?

• 28:51Speaker 01

  I mean, realizing first and foremost that science is everywhere. It's all around us.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  And that's something that we all agree with.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you exploit that.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  So of course you exploit it. So you say, you know, I work with teachers and say, before you go teach a young person, you need to go with a notepad and walk through the neighborhood and read the neighborhood through the eyes of a scientist. So if I'm talking about weathering in an earth science class, I'm looking at the rocks in the park around me. If I'm talking about how the building is constructed, if there are alloys in the metals, I look at where I can find those examples within their life worlds to bring back. And then also start making connections between the scientist and the MC, where the corollaries exist. You know, what is it about Galileo saying, "No, the earth does move, damn it." You know, and everybody's saying, "No." And how does that sort of make a connection to how an MC sees the world and says, "No, this is the way things are in my hood."

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to get back to that. When we return on StarTalk Radio.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. Before the break, we were talking about how to parlay the life experience of a kid in the inner city into an educational, scientifically enlightened experience. And that's what you do. That's what you think about. In fact, you have a book. What's the title? Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's awesome.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  That's a Ron right there.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  That was purposeful. That's why the title is, you know.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me more about when you walk into the inner city. How do you? What goes on in your head when you go back to the classroom?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  I mean, exactly what I described earlier. Depending on what it is.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you're a professor at a university. So you're teaching teachers.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  I'm teaching teachers. But I'm also going in classroom and teaching young people also. Just to make sure that what I do when I teach teachers is authentic. Because that's a key piece of hip-hop.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, you're floating somewhere in the academic and the hallowed halls and...

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Man, it's easy when you get around a bunch of other professors. We just end up speaking to each other so much that we just become removed from the rest of the world.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  And there's a lot of pipe smoking going on.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Pipe smoking in both sides. I'm halfway there.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  So it's just going through the neighborhood through that lens of a scientist and trying to understand what the phenomena around you, how that phenomena can be explained scientifically, and using that as an example to teach, you know, young people.

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because when I think of violence, you know, I can think of a dead person and the trajectory of the decomposition of a body.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I mean, that's kind of interesting.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I mean, initially you're the same temperature as the air and then as, since you're dead, you're not generating energy anymore, so your body temperature begins to cool. So everyone says, "The body, it feels cold."

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in fact, it's not actually cold, because all it drops is to the room temperature. And you don't think of room temperature things as being cold, but the body is so commonly warm to you that anything less than that, you're gonna say it feels cold. So you can go there, you can put biology in there, not just...

• 31:51Speaker 01

  You could go anywhere.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anywhere.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Even when you talk about hip-hop more broadly, because we were talking a lot about rap pedagogy, and I think there's a distinction between rap and hip-hop that we haven't even talked about.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a whole piece of the equation we haven't touched yet. I mean, rap is an artifact of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop culture is so much more complex.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so hip-hop is the cul- rap is not the culture, hip-hop is the culture.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Right, hip-hop is the culture.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, thanks for clarifying.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, well, you know, we've been slotting my interview with Jizza. All right, and you can't have Jizza, founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan...

• 32:22Speaker 01

  You gotta get a verse, yeah.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless we get him to spit a verse.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's what we did, but let's check it out. Me and Jizza just jamming.

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have here one of your lyrics. I think you said it earlier, but I want to, like, the privilege of reciting it with you. "Why, universe, you and I..."

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Verse runs like clockwork.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forever.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Words pulled together.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sudden change in the weather. The nature and the scale of events don't make sense.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  A storm.

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A storm.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  You know, sometimes they switch the lyrics around a lot.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A storm with no warning.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  You're drawn in by immense gravity that's gone mad. Clouds of dust and debris moving at colossal speeds, crushing MC. Since this rap region is heavily packed with stars, internal mirror in the telescope, noticed.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The czars.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  The czars.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From far away, they.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  We blink as I like to stroll with great distance and space between precise globes that travel in a circle of order like the tape in your cassette recorder filled with corporate slaughter. Meaning the contract manifestly worked. The hitman for hire with weapon in his hand, he lurks. In spite of his strange appearance, he made his clearance on a target through a crowded market, no interference. Microphone left on the scene without a serial. Evidence consistent with organic material. I forget the other two.

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I got.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in that set of lyrics, you transition from cosmic themes to street life. Right? Walking straight into the cassette recorder.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what, how did that? You didn't blend them. You went from one to the other.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Right, because I was speaking about traveling in a circle of order, so.

• 34:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmically.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Cassette recorder rhymed with order. And cassette recorder spins in a circle of motion. So I just threw that in there, but I said like the tape in your cassette recorder filled with corporate slaughter. So somehow I just, I took it back to the industry.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So the cassette recorder rhymed you back from the cosmos in, but then you're talking about, uh, meaning the contacts.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  The contract.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, contracts.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Like the contracts you sign, you're on a dotted line, you're signing your life.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The hitman for hire, weapon in, I mean, this is very different from.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Clouds and dust and debris and.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  It can, it can, it's extreme.

• 35:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can turn on a dump.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  It's extreme.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You turn like that?

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Hmm. Hmm. Weapon in his hand, he lurks. In spite of his strange appearance.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what, what, what compelled you to turn in the lyrics?

• 35:16Speaker 03

  That tape cassette, that tape recorder.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were pivoting on rhymes as you came out of the universe. Surfing rhymes.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Hmm. Rhyme surfer.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that a fair?

• 35:31Speaker 03

  That's, that's fair. That's one thing about MCing, it can go anywhere, as long as it makes sense.

• 35:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, you know, in retrospect, I should have just shut up while he was doing his lyrics. I mean, I was just totally messed up. I'm just like, reading it, and he's trying to get the pulse of the rhythm there. Nah, it was good that way because I... it broke it down. Broke it down. We gotta, we gotta go. We gotta end this hour. Oh! You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. As always, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding you to keep looking.