SPEAKER_1: Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.
SPEAKER_1: StarTalk begins right now.
SPEAKER_1: Welcome to StarTalk Radio, I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, national physicist at the American Museum of National History, here in New York City to buy Chuck It app when you're in town.
SPEAKER_1: I got with me the one, the only, Chuck Nice.
SPEAKER_2: Thank God, that is only one and only.
SPEAKER_1: Apparently it's not, because I went to find you on Twitter and there's 22 other Chuck Nicers.
SPEAKER_3: So true.
SPEAKER_1: You're not the one and only Chuck Nice comic.
SPEAKER_3: That's right.
SPEAKER_1: I got with me also in studio, Chris Emdin.
SPEAKER_1: Chris, thanks for coming on to do this.
SPEAKER_1: I found you because we're featuring clips from GZA, the hip hop artist, and this is your specialty, thinking about inner city hip hop culture and how you can actually parlay that into science education, which is an awesome job.
SPEAKER_1: We'll clone you, we'll put you on the top of the list for the cloning.
SPEAKER_4: Then I'll be just like Chuck.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, there'll be 22 more of you.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just curious because you came to this show in a bow tie, in a jacket, in a starched shirt, and a pocket square.
SPEAKER_3: That's looking good.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, the last time I looked at folks spitting raps, their pants are hanging low.
SPEAKER_1: First, what's up with that?
SPEAKER_4: The thing is that hip hop artists, like the most prolific scientists of our time, are very anti-establishment.
SPEAKER_4: Whatever the norm is in the world, they want to be the opposite.
SPEAKER_4: For a lot of young people, they look at who they perceive to be the most anti-establishment.
SPEAKER_4: Oftentimes, little folks who are in a criminal justice system.
SPEAKER_4: The aesthetic, the look of the pants hanging low is just from prison culture.
SPEAKER_3: Because they take your belt.
SPEAKER_4: Right, but the students don't know that.
SPEAKER_4: They don't realize that their pants are hanging low because in prison, you don't have a belt, so you can't kill yourself pretty much.
SPEAKER_4: And so that's why your pants are hanging low.
SPEAKER_4: People don't know that.
SPEAKER_4: They just look at, they just see the look of it.
SPEAKER_4: And then beyond that also, you know.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe I just never paid attention to the buttocks of prisoners, but.
SPEAKER_3: You haven't been to the right prison, sir.
SPEAKER_4: But you know, that's such a great point.
SPEAKER_1: I'm just saying, so had I paid attention, you're saying I would have noticed that they don't wear a belt.
SPEAKER_4: They don't wear a belt.
SPEAKER_1: They wear jeans in the mighty prisons, and so the pants just have to hang where they do.
SPEAKER_4: Right, and beyond that also, beyond not having to build it, so it's sort of, in prison culture, it's also a sign to show other inmates that you are available.
SPEAKER_4: Right?
SPEAKER_4: With the pants hanging low.
SPEAKER_4: But the thing is, the young people aren't, they don't know the sort of nuances of where that.
SPEAKER_1: Right, the prison nuance.
SPEAKER_4: Right, the prison nuance.
SPEAKER_1: They just see what it looks like.
SPEAKER_4: They just see what it looks like, and it looks anti-establishment, it looks bad boyish, it looks, you know, it makes me look different than the norm.
SPEAKER_4: They wear it without knowing the history behind it.
SPEAKER_1: Oh my God.
SPEAKER_4: Listen, I talk to young people all the time, and I say, let's talk about this pants hanging low.
SPEAKER_4: Do you know where it comes from?
SPEAKER_4: Nah, it looks cool.
SPEAKER_4: Let's talk about where it comes from, and once I start telling them, they are mortified.
SPEAKER_4: They are mortified.
SPEAKER_3: Did you know that your pants hanging low is really saying to another inmate, cog?
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for this illuminating history.
SPEAKER_1: Of the low hanging pants.
SPEAKER_1: You know, in my interview with GZA, I wanted to know the history of the Wu-Tang Clan, because he's one of the founding members.
SPEAKER_1: Let's find out what he tells us about that.
SPEAKER_1: Tell me about a little bit of history of the Wu-Tang Clan.
SPEAKER_5: Wu-Tang is a group mostly from Staten Island.
SPEAKER_5: Well, Staten Island bass group.
SPEAKER_5: Some of us are from Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_5: And we put an album out in 93 called Enter the 36 Chambers, Wu-Tang.
SPEAKER_5: And nine members at the time.
SPEAKER_5: Some of us had solo careers prior to that.
SPEAKER_1: So you were assembled out of the musical.
SPEAKER_5: Just like a band.
SPEAKER_1: Assembled.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah.
SPEAKER_5: Many of us childhood friends.
SPEAKER_1: And tell me about its influence.
SPEAKER_5: Very strong influence.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah.
SPEAKER_5: Very, very.
SPEAKER_1: How do you account for that?
SPEAKER_1: Other than just your great performance.
SPEAKER_1: There's got to be something else going on there.
SPEAKER_5: Well, nine individuals.
SPEAKER_1: Because it affected.
SPEAKER_5: Nine different personalities.
SPEAKER_1: Culture.
SPEAKER_5: Of course.
SPEAKER_1: As though hip hop took a turn.
SPEAKER_5: Well, every now and then, you know, history takes its turn.
SPEAKER_5: You have conscious rap at some point.
SPEAKER_5: Then you have party rap.
SPEAKER_5: Then you have revolutionary rap.
SPEAKER_5: Then it comes back around again.
SPEAKER_5: Conscious party.
SPEAKER_1: And you would characterize...
SPEAKER_5: Wu-Tang was just a group that was just...
SPEAKER_5: You couldn't resist at the time.
SPEAKER_5: Nine members, nine individuals.
SPEAKER_5: Different personalities.
SPEAKER_5: Great music.
SPEAKER_5: We all had solo careers also.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, albums that were charting.
SPEAKER_5: Four or five albums on the charts at the same time.
SPEAKER_5: It's a big explosion.
SPEAKER_5: It's a big bang in the influences.
SPEAKER_1: So how would you say rap and hip hop differed emerging on the other side of the Wu-Tang clan compared to before?
SPEAKER_1: That's a portal that the genre passed through.
SPEAKER_5: I think it's forever going through portals.
SPEAKER_5: It's forever changing.
SPEAKER_1: Well, if it's not going through portals, it means people aren't as creative as they ought to be.
SPEAKER_5: Or they're just going into certain areas they've never been and don't know anything about.
SPEAKER_5: But I mean, it's forever changing musically, as far as corporate-wise.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, it's on a whole other level as far as the money, the business side.
SPEAKER_5: But I think lyrically, it's regressed.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, as far as the lyrical side of it, I mean, if you think of, if you take hip hop from the 80s or this golden era, even in the 90s, and the majority of the MCs that were out there, they were mostly lyrical.
SPEAKER_5: Even my first trip I made to the Bronx, one of my first trips to the south of the Bronx from Staten Island.
SPEAKER_5: Born and raised in the Bronx.
SPEAKER_5: It was around 11.
SPEAKER_5: And we had two MCs in our whole borough of Staten Island.
SPEAKER_5: And when I got to the Bronx, a whole bunch of MCs.
SPEAKER_5: You know, I have this line where I say, I was born with the mic in my hand, and I took it from Brooklyn to the SI land.
SPEAKER_5: I pulled up on the block, got out the truck.
SPEAKER_5: It was the first of pit stops, the era of the spinning top, around the birth of hip hop.
SPEAKER_5: That was something I had identified with, so I made it my point to exploit this fly gift.
SPEAKER_5: And me and the RZA made trips to the BX, a mass of ferocious MCs, town of T-Rex, giants in every ways, rap flows for every day.
SPEAKER_5: We knew we would get a reward with a price to pay.
SPEAKER_5: The basic training was beyond entertaining, just a cadence of verbal expression, self-explaining.
SPEAKER_5: So those were my early days of traveling to the Bronx, but they had this mass of ferocious MCs, and everyone was so lyrically good that it only made us sharpen our sword.
SPEAKER_5: Nowadays, it's not like that.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, I hear stuff you hear.
SPEAKER_1: So they're not as literate.
SPEAKER_1: That's what you're saying.
SPEAKER_1: Do they still have ideas?
SPEAKER_1: They just don't know how to express it?
SPEAKER_5: I think many imaginations are sterile at the time.
SPEAKER_5: Why?
SPEAKER_5: Because you're not producing anything new.
SPEAKER_1: They don't have a muse.
SPEAKER_5: It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_1: The universe is talking to you, and you're responding.
SPEAKER_1: They've got nothing talking to them.
SPEAKER_5: No, they don't hear it.
SPEAKER_5: When your parents say, you're not listening to me.
SPEAKER_5: You know they're speaking.
SPEAKER_5: You hear the sound.
SPEAKER_5: You feel the vibration, but it's not resonating.
SPEAKER_1: That doesn't get in there.
SPEAKER_1: So the universe is talking to you every day?
SPEAKER_5: Not only the universe, the earth, people, planets, objects, beings.
SPEAKER_5: I'm inspired by all.
SPEAKER_5: You know, I once said, you know, in a lecture, when I was speaking about inspirations, I can be inspired by the spider because his web is 50 times or 20 times stronger than steel.
SPEAKER_5: So that's amazing in itself, and I'm inspired by that.
SPEAKER_5: And I can write.
SPEAKER_1: So you have to know enough about the spider's web to even be inspired by it.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, but you have to be willing to learn.
SPEAKER_1: You got to be curious.
SPEAKER_5: Right, right.
SPEAKER_1: So there's a whole community of rappers who've lost their sources of creativity.
SPEAKER_1: That's got to be it.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, and everyone is following.
SPEAKER_5: The majority is following.
SPEAKER_5: If it's 199, follow.
SPEAKER_5: Only one raps in his own voice.
SPEAKER_5: So everyone is following, so it's the same thing over and over and over.
SPEAKER_1: So we got to spread this, this.
SPEAKER_5: And it's not really the story you're telling, it's how you tell the story.
SPEAKER_5: I think being in a club can be interesting, depending on what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_1: When we come back, more of my interview with GZA and the banter consequential to that.
SPEAKER_1: Bye We're back on StarTalk Radio.
SPEAKER_1: I got with me Chuck Nice in studio, Chris Emdin, professor dude from Columbia University.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks for coming into studio for this.
SPEAKER_1: We're analyzing the culture of hip hop and rap, and your specialty is exploring how to bring science to the inner city in ways that are culturally relevant.
SPEAKER_1: And that's awesome.
SPEAKER_1: Just give me an example of that.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, you know, just basing this on the last clip we heard from GZA is this infatuation in hip hop with sort of completion and circle of motion is really, really intriguing.
SPEAKER_4: The fact that when rappers get together, they engage with each other, they do so in what they call a cipher.
SPEAKER_4: And a cipher means that we have to position ourselves in a circle.
SPEAKER_4: And this notion of completion within our modes of communication and also completion and circle of motion in the universe and in outer space.
SPEAKER_1: Some of this sounds kind of new agey.
SPEAKER_4: Well, it is, it is new agey.
SPEAKER_4: But that's how scientific thought is developed, right?
SPEAKER_4: Isn't it, you know, you get to a point where...
SPEAKER_1: We need a fresh idea that can take you to a new place.
SPEAKER_4: Exactly, and that's what we're doing in the world of education.
SPEAKER_1: But at some point, your plane has to land from that, I mean, you gotta land somewhere with that, alright?
SPEAKER_4: You land just enough.
SPEAKER_1: You gotta land on a curriculum somehow.
SPEAKER_4: You land just enough to make some sense of what's just happened, and then you take off once more.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, okay, alright, that can work.
SPEAKER_1: And so this...
SPEAKER_3: When does the layover happen?
SPEAKER_4: Depends on who you fly with.
SPEAKER_2: Ha ha.
SPEAKER_1: In my interview with GZA, he mentioned the five percenters.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Is this a cult, is this?
SPEAKER_1: So I had to explore it a little more.
SPEAKER_1: Apparently, it was started in Harlem by Clarence 13X, who was a disciple of Malcolm X.
SPEAKER_1: Alright, so this would have been the Nation of Islam back then.
SPEAKER_1: Is that what they call them, right?
SPEAKER_1: The American local version of Islam was?
SPEAKER_4: American local version of Islam was the Nation of Islam.
SPEAKER_4: The Nation of Islam.
SPEAKER_4: Could be described in some way as a splinter group.
SPEAKER_1: Splinter, yeah.
SPEAKER_4: I guess.
SPEAKER_4: And you can sort of describe the five percenters as a splinter off the splinter.
SPEAKER_3: A splinter?
SPEAKER_4: Right.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know if that's good or bad, but.
SPEAKER_3: So they're the toothpick group.
SPEAKER_4: The toothpick group.
SPEAKER_3: We had the splinter group and then now we just, I'm a five percenter.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so they were otherwise known as the Nation of Gods and Earth, so I have my notes here.
SPEAKER_1: I gotta try to understand more about that.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, so if we do the math right, they asserted that only 10% of the people in the world know the truth of existence.
SPEAKER_4: That's right.
SPEAKER_1: 85% of the world wanna keep 15% in ignorance, but there's only 5% left.
SPEAKER_4: Who are the upper echelon, those who become self-aware, who have knowledge of self, which has actually been added on as one of the extra pillars of hip hop.
SPEAKER_4: So hip hop is rapping, MCing, b-boying, and DJing.
SPEAKER_1: What's b-boying?
SPEAKER_4: B-boying, you would know as break dancing.
SPEAKER_4: It's conventionally known as b-boying.
SPEAKER_1: I would know, excuse me.
SPEAKER_4: I'm not trying to play you, Neil.
SPEAKER_4: Those are the four elements, the four pillars of hip hop.
SPEAKER_4: Knowledge itself has become an extra pillar of the culture.
SPEAKER_4: That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah, it's paying respect to the influence of the 5%ers on hip hop culture.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, let's find out what GZA says about this.
SPEAKER_1: I wanted to know how that played with spirituality because he cared much about this.
SPEAKER_1: I come to it as a scientist, and sometimes the intersection of those two can produce great art.
SPEAKER_1: So, let's find out what GZA tells us.
SPEAKER_1: So, tell me about the 5%?
SPEAKER_5: The nation of the gods and earths?
SPEAKER_5: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: It's mysterious to me.
SPEAKER_5: Well, 5% nation is the nation of the gods and earths.
SPEAKER_5: It started from Clarence.
SPEAKER_1: Gods on earth?
SPEAKER_5: Gods and earths.
SPEAKER_1: Gods and earths.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, it's called the nation of gods and earths.
SPEAKER_1: 5%?
SPEAKER_5: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: And 5% of what?
SPEAKER_5: Well, 5% represents 5% of the population of the planet.
SPEAKER_5: That knows the truth about certain things and not mystery worshipers as far as worshiping a mystery god or a god that you have to die to see in order to be able to see.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so with gods on earth, they're there and you're tangible.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, just like it was gods in Egypt.
SPEAKER_5: Well, you know, and this was started in the 60s.
SPEAKER_1: Who started it?
SPEAKER_5: Clarence XIII Smith, that's his name.
SPEAKER_5: And he was part of the Muslim mosque and he left.
SPEAKER_1: So the nation of Islam.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, the nation of Islam and he left and he took some followers with him.
SPEAKER_1: Well, he left from the nation of Islam.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, he started.
SPEAKER_1: It's a spinoff.
SPEAKER_5: Yes.
SPEAKER_5: Okay.
SPEAKER_5: And, you know, took some of the Muslim lessons, the alphabets and all that and started teaching the youth in the street.
SPEAKER_1: People never happy with the religion.
SPEAKER_1: There's always a split.
SPEAKER_1: Look at the history of religions.
SPEAKER_1: But that's why there's so many religions, right?
SPEAKER_1: You start with one, oh, I need to, I got to feel a little differently about it.
SPEAKER_1: Let me go this way and that way.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so how many are part of this?
SPEAKER_5: I mean, I can't tell you the, I couldn't tell you the numbers.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, is it a hundred, a thousand, a million?
SPEAKER_5: Probably several million.
SPEAKER_1: Worldwide?
SPEAKER_5: At this time, yeah.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so you associate with this?
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, from my early days.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so what does it do for you?
SPEAKER_5: Your creativity?
SPEAKER_5: It got me where I am now because it all started with us studying lessons and we would study our lessons, some of the lessons related to earth science, like what makes rain, hell, snow, and earthquakes.
SPEAKER_5: That was part of the quest from early days.
SPEAKER_5: You know, those, one of the lessons.
SPEAKER_1: So it's an academic curriculum.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, the circumference of the planet, you know, light traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
SPEAKER_5: These were some of our lessons that we studied coming up, so kind of gave us an edge on being lyrical, with the word play and flowing, and just knowing things word for word, you know, and started us on our venture to learn more about the universe.
SPEAKER_1: So forgive the word, but it's kind of like a baptism into the natural world.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, it is, yeah, baptism to the natural world, way of life.
SPEAKER_5: Not a religion, though.
SPEAKER_1: This 5% group, it's a philosophy.
SPEAKER_1: And you said it's not a religion, because religion, normally, there's mystical beings that are praised.
SPEAKER_5: Right, idols that are worshiped.
SPEAKER_1: And that sort of thing, none of that is in this.
SPEAKER_5: No, it's just about uplifting the youth and teaching them that they are great and God is within yourself.
SPEAKER_1: As opposed to somewhere out in the clouds.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, you can't see, you're somewhere in the clouds.
SPEAKER_1: On Mount Olympus, wherever.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, and how everything is within yourself.
SPEAKER_1: And so that can be a powerful philosophy for someone who doesn't think they're worth anything.
SPEAKER_1: They're on the street.
SPEAKER_5: I doubt it would be a great philosophy for someone that doesn't think they're worth anything.
SPEAKER_5: Only if they believe it.
SPEAKER_1: Well, some do, right?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, some don't get out.
SPEAKER_5: Yeah, some don't.
SPEAKER_1: Well, I'm heartened to learn that the natural world can serve as a force of good in this way.
SPEAKER_1: Most people that I know who come up, there's their life and their religion, and then the natural world is something else out there.
SPEAKER_1: And they don't see themselves as part of it.
SPEAKER_1: And your lyrics and just your tone and everything you say makes it clear that you are part of this world and the world is becoming part of you.
SPEAKER_5: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Together.
SPEAKER_5: One.
SPEAKER_1: No, some deep stuff.
SPEAKER_3: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, what's your reaction?
SPEAKER_4: To me, it just reaffirms the deep connections between science and hip hop culture.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, this sort of philosophy of hip hop, in this case, it was nature.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah, nature.
SPEAKER_4: But I mean, let's think really quickly about, you know, folks who develop philosophies of science, like the Coons and the Polanis of the world, and the way that they position science as, you know, this sort of elite group and the folks who make the decisions for the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_4: And, you know, that aligns to a 5% of view of hip hop.
SPEAKER_4: And so you have those corollaries philosophically, but then also in the nature of the interactions of the 5%ers.
SPEAKER_4: It's a sort of a distinct language.
SPEAKER_4: Science for many people is really all in the naming, right?
SPEAKER_4: By identifying a certain practice.
SPEAKER_1: It's a little planet or not.
SPEAKER_4: Right.
SPEAKER_4: No, no, genuinely, right?
SPEAKER_4: Or if I have a certain way of knowing and being and existing in the world, it can be either pseudoscience or science based upon whether or not my theory is accepted by a set of peers who accepts that as scientific.
SPEAKER_3: However, there is some empirical evidence that must exist for it to be science.
SPEAKER_1: It's not whether something's true, it's whether the experiment's true.
SPEAKER_4: But the sort of theory exists and the empirical evidence supports the existent theory.
SPEAKER_4: And then it becomes a valid theory.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, correct.
SPEAKER_4: Now within-
SPEAKER_1: You can invent anything you want, but nature is the ultimate arbiter.
SPEAKER_4: Right.
SPEAKER_4: And that sort of model, if you look within hip hop culture and what the 5% is produced, it's really exactly just that.
SPEAKER_4: So there's a theory for how we look at how we exist in the world, that the God is within the human being.
SPEAKER_4: And so if that's the case, then you have, then they provide the followers with evidence to support the fact that the Asiatic man is God over all they contain.
SPEAKER_4: Now it sounds kind of pseudo-science and weird-like, but the process for validating that way of thinking is inherently scientific, i.e.
SPEAKER_4: I develop a theory, and then I find the empirical evidence to support the fact that that theory exists.
SPEAKER_1: Right, but you gotta be careful because if you can be so committed to an idea, wanting it to be correct, then you'll try to prove the idea.
SPEAKER_3: You'll force yourself to come up with the answer.
SPEAKER_1: Right, right, right, and you dust under the rug those things that don't fit your idea.
SPEAKER_1: There's a lot of that that goes on.
SPEAKER_4: Everywhere.
SPEAKER_1: Everywhere.
SPEAKER_4: Everywhere.
SPEAKER_3: Like for instance, the theory that I am a one-percenter when everyone knows that I'm broke.
SPEAKER_1: Exactly.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, so if this five-percenter movement is successful, then they're no longer five percent.
SPEAKER_1: They're like 10 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent.
SPEAKER_1: They don't have a movement.
SPEAKER_4: The quest eternally continues, right?
SPEAKER_1: No, once they can tell everybody that it's within everybody and no one is withholding the knowledge.
SPEAKER_4: I think it's an acceptance of the tension that will forever exist.
SPEAKER_3: So that makes the supposition that there will always be 85 percent of the people who are just ignorant.
SPEAKER_4: It does in many respects, but the quest of the person who has the knowledge is to always ensure that you pull as many as possible into the fold.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, there is a tension that you can never resolve.
SPEAKER_4: Right?
SPEAKER_4: But again, that's inherently the nature of science.
SPEAKER_1: We're back on StarTalk Radio, and I've got Chuck Nice here, and Chris Emdin down from Columbia University.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks for coming.
SPEAKER_1: Chuck, I just had to just quickly say, you've got a show.
SPEAKER_1: You just bust into people's homes and talk about it.
SPEAKER_3: That is exactly what happens.
SPEAKER_1: I can't believe there's a show with that title.
SPEAKER_3: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_1: I don't even want to believe that.
SPEAKER_3: Home Strange Home.
SPEAKER_1: On Home and Garden.
SPEAKER_3: On HGTV.
SPEAKER_3: Every Friday at night.
SPEAKER_1: You are so not coming to my house, because I don't know if the camera's behind you.
SPEAKER_3: I'll be there whether you want me to or not.
SPEAKER_1: Talking about strange people with their strange home.
SPEAKER_1: Damn, not even the home is sacred anymore.
SPEAKER_1: Well, we'll still look for that Friday nights.
SPEAKER_3: Friday nights, man.
SPEAKER_4: I'll be watching.
SPEAKER_1: But that's not what we're here to talk about.
SPEAKER_1: We're talking about the hip hop culture and GZA, I'm featuring clips from my interview with GZA.
SPEAKER_1: And you were getting so in the previous segment, so deep into this little philosophy of the five percenters.
SPEAKER_1: And from where I sit as an empiricist and as a scientist, it looks a little out there, and I got to pull in the reins a bit so that it can actually confront reality.
SPEAKER_1: And maybe you got to float before you land?
SPEAKER_1: I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_4: It certainly is a case of floating before you land, right?
SPEAKER_1: Because at the end of the day, you're a science educator, you're an education professional.
SPEAKER_1: It's got to land as a curriculum somehow.
SPEAKER_1: There's got to be some lesson plan that comes out of this talk.
SPEAKER_4: You know what it is?
SPEAKER_4: There has to be an appreciation of the complexities of the culture in order for you to be able to use it.
SPEAKER_4: There are a lot of folks who do hip hop education.
SPEAKER_4: They do rap education.
SPEAKER_4: They have no idea about the five percenters.
SPEAKER_4: They have no idea about what the experience is like of youth in urban settings.
SPEAKER_4: In order for me to do this kind of work to connect young people to science, I have to ensure that I'm deeply immersed in all of the culture.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so you're not taken by surprise and you can tap it if necessary if it's fertile.
SPEAKER_4: Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_1: And I'm curious about role models.
SPEAKER_1: I think the concept of role model is overrated personally, but, because you can be inspired by anything, whether or not it's a human being, and nor should you be so invested in one individual that you're committed to everything they do.
SPEAKER_1: Spread it out, do it a la carte, is how I think about it.
SPEAKER_1: I spoke with GZA about what does it mean, because he clearly is a role model to some people, just how does he react to that?
SPEAKER_1: I'm gonna read you a posting on our Facebook page from Michael Rafales, if I pronounced that right.
SPEAKER_1: As a teenager, this is who we solicited inquiries, because they knew you were gonna be on StarTalk.
SPEAKER_1: As a teenager, it was not my school, but it was Wu Tang, who taught me the idea of knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
SPEAKER_1: It was because of this idea that I went into physics.
SPEAKER_1: I'm now a high school science teacher with a passion for sharing my love of science and improving science literacy.
SPEAKER_5: Wow, that's great.
SPEAKER_1: With that going on, I'm not even necessary.
SPEAKER_1: Let's do more of that.
SPEAKER_1: What do we need me for?
SPEAKER_1: If you can sing, your influence does this.
SPEAKER_1: This is all we're trying to do here.
SPEAKER_5: I think that's one of the unique things about being an artist is that you have a voice that people hear and listen to, so it's important to say something that's important.
SPEAKER_1: How many artists don't?
SPEAKER_5: 99 out of 100.
SPEAKER_1: So if your audience are not just moving to the beat, they're being philosophically schooled, schooled in a good way, not in the abusive way.
SPEAKER_1: Like, you got schooled, philosophically schooled.
SPEAKER_1: That's a whole other understanding of the role music can play in our lives, isn't it?
SPEAKER_1: I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_1: Most music, nobody's saying, I'm going to play this so that my mind can be in a new academic place.
SPEAKER_1: That doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_5: Well, I think some musicians think like that.
SPEAKER_1: Well, they can be in a new musical place, but in a scholarly place.
SPEAKER_1: The person here telling me he's a physics teacher in high school because he listens to Wu Tang?
SPEAKER_1: I don't know anyone who's listened to any other performer who could make that claim.
SPEAKER_1: No one said, Elvis, I became a science teacher because I listened to your song.
SPEAKER_1: This just doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_1: So have you fully embraced the power over life's trajectories that you might actually be wielding?
SPEAKER_1: Wielding?
SPEAKER_5: Yes, I have.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, that's just one story out of many.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, I've heard several stories throughout the years just about the influence that Wu Tang has had on two generations now of people.
SPEAKER_5: People that started with us, grew with us, and then their children or their nephews or nieces.
SPEAKER_5: So it's like a whole other generation of kids that's listening.
SPEAKER_5: I'm honored to be part of that.
SPEAKER_5: I think that's a great thing.
SPEAKER_1: So I have to tell you before I began my interview with GZA, I had no understanding of the magnitude of their influence.
SPEAKER_1: And like I said, if it's one thing to say, oh, I was inspired to stay in love or to break up or to be happy today because of a song I listen to, nobody talks about pop music as something that sends them back to school.
SPEAKER_1: So how do you, that must make you feel good.
SPEAKER_4: Absolutely, I love it.
SPEAKER_1: Educator.
SPEAKER_4: It forms everything I believe in, right?
SPEAKER_1: Everything.
SPEAKER_3: But it makes sense because if you think about it, kids when they listen to hip hop, they listen to it over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_3: And as they start to do that, they start to recognize what these words are saying and they're in lousy inspiration.
SPEAKER_4: Right.
SPEAKER_4: Particularly if a young person is listening to a rapper who is pulling from different spaces.
SPEAKER_4: And so it forces people to want to study.
SPEAKER_4: You know, if you listen to a GZA and he's talking about the cosmos and he's talking about stars, he's talking about the universe.
SPEAKER_4: Right.
SPEAKER_4: I'm memorizing the lyrics and all of a sudden I want to understand it.
SPEAKER_1: So it's inspiration to then learn more.
SPEAKER_4: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: There it goes.
SPEAKER_1: More on my interview with GZA when StarTalk Radio comes back.
SPEAKER_1: This is StarTalk, we've just returned.
SPEAKER_1: I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson.
SPEAKER_1: I'm here with Jeff Neist and Chris Emdin.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks, Professor Chris Emdin.
SPEAKER_4: Chris Emdin's fine.
SPEAKER_1: Bowtie donning Chris Emdin.
SPEAKER_1: He's got it, that he tied it himself.
SPEAKER_1: I still am learning to do that.
SPEAKER_1: I'll get lessons from you later.
SPEAKER_1: I'm amazed that you're wearing a bowtie and you're here advising us on the hip hop culture, because I don't know that I've ever seen a bowtie on anyone spitting a rap.
SPEAKER_1: So have you?
SPEAKER_4: Have I spit a rap?
SPEAKER_4: But have I seen other people?
SPEAKER_1: All it would take is for you to spit a rap and that would...
SPEAKER_4: We just need more stylists in hip hop and that's a change for Holt.
SPEAKER_1: So, you know, we talked about GZA as a role model in a previous segment.
SPEAKER_1: What intrigues me is what role science and the themes that we discover as scientists have played and can play in the creativity of artists.
SPEAKER_1: And I had to get GZA's reaction to that.
SPEAKER_1: So let's see what he says.
SPEAKER_5: First, I make music for myself with the hopes of other people liking it and accepting it and embracing it.
SPEAKER_5: But I'm not going into the studio with this idea of that I want to put out a song that's going to draw in all ages or not.
SPEAKER_5: Let me put this in a different way.
SPEAKER_5: I don't go into the studio thinking about making a club song or club hit and hoping that a whole bunch of club party goers will like this song, it's not done like that.
SPEAKER_5: It's done from here first, for myself, then it's put out.
SPEAKER_5: And then hopefully it reaches others and they can learn.
SPEAKER_1: That just means you're a pure artist.
SPEAKER_1: That's what that means.
SPEAKER_1: You're doing it because it's in you, not because it's been acquired of you.
SPEAKER_1: Two different products come out of those two possibilities.
SPEAKER_5: I think it's about becoming one with whatever you do with your music.
SPEAKER_5: Like when I watch physicists or astrophysicists speak about the universe, I mean, they're so excited about it, enthused about explaining it, and they have this passion for it.
SPEAKER_5: That's how it is with writing and lyrics.
SPEAKER_1: So I like that.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, first I think it's a luxury for an artist to just create art without reference to who's gonna buy it.
SPEAKER_1: All right, and so if he's just creating art and he's feeling the universe, the universe is gonna show up in his art.
SPEAKER_1: You agree with that?
SPEAKER_1: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: That works.
SPEAKER_1: So we ought to take all performers and give them science class.
SPEAKER_1: Just to up the chance that maybe something might happen in their creativity.
SPEAKER_1: By the way, there's already some of that, but it's a little more explicit.
SPEAKER_1: Do you know the Galaxy song from Monty Python?
SPEAKER_1: I don't think I do.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it gives data on the universe.
SPEAKER_1: It gives the age of the universe, the speed the earth is going.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and there's another one about the sun.
SPEAKER_1: The sun is a ball of incandescent gas.
SPEAKER_1: So those are explicit science songs, obviously, and they're fun.
SPEAKER_1: There's the element song by, what's the guy's name from Harvard?
SPEAKER_1: The guy, Timothy Leary, right?
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so he recites all 103 then known elements in a song.
SPEAKER_1: He rhymes them.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that was a challenge.
SPEAKER_1: No, so that's obviously, that's a different kind of creative process.
SPEAKER_1: It's not so much from the soul as it is, here's a lesson plan, let me hand it.
SPEAKER_1: But I think all of that can play a role.
SPEAKER_4: Yeah, the explicit connections allow you to be able to have a command of the information you're given in the moment, right?
SPEAKER_4: So if the goal for you in your science class is to-
SPEAKER_4: I'm sorry, I'll slow it up.
SPEAKER_1: No, there's a great sentence.
SPEAKER_1: There's a great academic link in the moment.
SPEAKER_4: It's an academic sentence, all right.
SPEAKER_1: That was an academic sentence, I love it.
SPEAKER_4: So if I'm really clear about giving you the scientific information, that'll only get out of it, you will only be able to get back to me a specific set of scientific information.
SPEAKER_4: So if I create a periodic table rhyme, you will know all the elements on the periodic table.
SPEAKER_4: You wouldn't necessarily be intrigued by the periodic table.
SPEAKER_1: And you'll get them in rhyme order.
SPEAKER_4: Not in an appropriate order.
SPEAKER_1: Not in order of atomic number.
SPEAKER_4: The halogens will be there, here, you'll be like, what the heck's going on?
SPEAKER_4: And so the explicit connection, it fosters the type of education system that we have, which is really a banking model.
SPEAKER_4: I deposit information, you give me back information.
SPEAKER_4: And if we have a schooling system where that's the focus of science, and that's the type of-
SPEAKER_4: That's what we get.
SPEAKER_4: The more implicit connections, where you make these connections for the young people, but you don't give all the information in between.
SPEAKER_4: What GZA does when he's taking these disparate ideas and making that into rhyme, that forces the person to be curious, want to explore on their own.
SPEAKER_4: They will still be able to give you the core information, but it fosters the creativity necessary to become a scientist.
SPEAKER_1: What you're saying, if you get handed information and you're supposed to spit it back for an exam, there is no occasion to be creative about it at all.
SPEAKER_4: At all.
SPEAKER_4: But you end up being a successful science student, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be a successful scientist.
SPEAKER_1: Nor a creative artist.
SPEAKER_3: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_3: It's like teaching a child the ABCs.
SPEAKER_3: But you can sing that ABC song all you want, it doesn't mean you can read.
SPEAKER_1: You know, that same rhyme is to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
SPEAKER_1: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_3: You know what?
SPEAKER_3: That's the first time I made that connection.
SPEAKER_1: No, you sing ABCs.
SPEAKER_1: We'll go out for a twink.
SPEAKER_1: StarTalk Radio.
SPEAKER_1: Welcome back to StarTalk Radio.
SPEAKER_1: I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host.
SPEAKER_1: I got Chuck E.
SPEAKER_1: Nice here.
SPEAKER_4: What's up?
SPEAKER_1: Love having you, and Chris Emdin, thanks for coming down from Columbia to do this.
SPEAKER_1: Put an academic angle.
SPEAKER_4: A little spin on it.
SPEAKER_1: A little spin on our interview clips with GZA.
SPEAKER_1: This is our last segment, and I'm sad, because I wanted this to just keep going.
SPEAKER_1: And we, one of the important points you made in the last segment was that you can just learn information, spit it back.
SPEAKER_1: You might even get an A on the test.
SPEAKER_1: And you'll be rated as a good student.
SPEAKER_1: But at the end of the day, where's your creativity?
SPEAKER_1: And creativity comes from putting together pieces of information that you were inspired to explore further.
SPEAKER_1: You agree with this.
SPEAKER_1: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: And so, what I know as a scientist, and what I think some people also know is that the universe can serve as a muse for science, because there's a lot of information out there that is still in need of connectivity.
SPEAKER_1: I still need it, I still want it.
SPEAKER_1: And so, I spoke with GZA about how science factors in to his creativity.
SPEAKER_1: And let's go early with this clip and see what he tells us.
SPEAKER_1: What's your favorite science concept that keeps coming back to you when you're penning lyrics?
SPEAKER_1: Could be an idea or an object or a thing.
SPEAKER_5: It's just how everything is connected.
SPEAKER_1: Because we are connected.
SPEAKER_5: Yes, I mean, it's all amazing.
SPEAKER_1: So it inspires you because it's amazing and so it inspires you.
SPEAKER_1: So now I worry that if you learn so much about it that it's no longer amazing, will it stop inspiring you?
SPEAKER_5: I don't think I can ever learn so much about it.
SPEAKER_5: I mean, because we learn it every day.
SPEAKER_5: Even with physicists, y'all discover new things.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, every day.
SPEAKER_5: All the time, y'all.
SPEAKER_1: Crazy stuff, too.
SPEAKER_5: Build stronger, more powerful telescopes, and y'all going further back in time.
SPEAKER_1: Particle accelerator, yeah.
SPEAKER_5: Exploring new things.
SPEAKER_5: So I don't think I can ever learn.
SPEAKER_1: So the universe is your muse.
SPEAKER_5: I love it.
SPEAKER_1: As I think the universe has been for many artists of late.
SPEAKER_1: I get a phone call every couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_1: There's an artist who's designing a sculpture for a city, and they want to align it with the sun.
SPEAKER_1: It was a star.
SPEAKER_1: And they're feeling the universe.
SPEAKER_1: And there's a day when artists, there was other things inspiring artists, but not science.
SPEAKER_1: So do you think it's because science is more accessible today that it's reaching into the soul of the artist?
SPEAKER_5: I think it's more accessible.
SPEAKER_5: I also think that people are learning more and more about themselves and their connection with the universe.
SPEAKER_1: So, Jesus is a deep guy.
SPEAKER_1: Much deeper.
SPEAKER_1: I'd known only very little about him.
SPEAKER_1: I read his bio before I started the interview, and I came out saying, wow, if every artist were this moved and inspired by the messages they want to deliver.
SPEAKER_3: There's going to be a lot less crap on the radio.
SPEAKER_4: Or not.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_3: Maybe there will just be more intelligent crap on the radio.
SPEAKER_1: Because I think about it, I say, look at all the ways a person, someone growing up, they're exposed to advertising, they're exposed to TV, they're exposed to movies, they're exposed to...
SPEAKER_1: And if everybody had a mission statement that we want to be more educated at the end of your day, that's a whole different world we're talking about.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: But you're at the pulse of that, right?
SPEAKER_4: And that's what I find most fascinating about.
SPEAKER_1: Because you wrote a book, what's the title of that book again?
SPEAKER_4: Urban Science Education for the Hip Hop Generation.
SPEAKER_1: Urban Science Education for the Hip Hop Generation.
SPEAKER_1: So that's for, I guess, other educators.
SPEAKER_4: It's for educators, it's for anybody who's intrigued about what connections are there between hip hop culture and science.
SPEAKER_1: Because they're going to presume none up front.
SPEAKER_4: Absolutely, I always get that.
SPEAKER_4: What the heck are you doing?
SPEAKER_4: Your life makes no sense, you know, I get that.
SPEAKER_3: You're actually promoting this?
SPEAKER_2: My God, man.
SPEAKER_1: Well, okay, so maybe the next book would be promoting science in country western music.
SPEAKER_1: Don't stop it, hip hop.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, I think, but the thing about hip hop is that it's so deeply connected, I find.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, you two are immersed in hip hop culture.
SPEAKER_4: You know, we're having this conversation about GZA and how insightful he is and how deep he is.
SPEAKER_4: And I go into urban public schools every week and I meet at least five GZs every week.
SPEAKER_4: Young people who have the potential to have that type of deep insight.
SPEAKER_4: And that, I think, is what's most fascinating, that by virtue of being a piece of hip hop culture, they develop a way of thinking and knowing and looking at the world that can very easily be aligned.
SPEAKER_1: So your job is to alert that teacher to take note of that if they see this evidence.
SPEAKER_4: Watch that, look at that, don't miss that.
SPEAKER_4: Don't beat that out of that person, you know, because if you do, then, see, the thing about schooling as we know it oftentimes is that it just doesn't foster the creative mind, it's the Einstein story all over again, a million times over.
SPEAKER_4: The most brilliant scientists of our time darn near flunking out, and that model continues today.
SPEAKER_4: I mean, look at GZA, and I hate to bring up a story in detail, this is a guy who you-
SPEAKER_1: You got 30 seconds to bring it up in detail.
SPEAKER_4: Brilliant, intelligent, right?
SPEAKER_4: Didn't get an opportunity to complete school, why?
SPEAKER_4: That's not a function of his intelligence, it's a function of the inability for-
SPEAKER_1: Or his motivation.
SPEAKER_4: Or his motivation.
SPEAKER_4: It's a function of the inability for the school system to foster it.
SPEAKER_3: So what you're saying is our school systems are failing.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, I hate to sum it up like that, but-
SPEAKER_4: Our school system is failing, but if it focuses more explicitly on culture, there's possibilities for us to reframe it.
SPEAKER_1: See, with Chuck's case, the teacher didn't beat out of him when he was cracking up in class, you see?
SPEAKER_1: That just stayed with him his whole life.
SPEAKER_3: That and I am highly rebellious.
SPEAKER_1: We got to wrap this up, Chuck.
SPEAKER_1: Thanks for being again on another episode of StarTalk.
SPEAKER_1: As always, Neil deGrasse Tyson signing off, telling you all to keep working up.