Nino

"Nino" is the first episode of The Lupe and Royce Show, published on October 8, 2020. Various topics they discuss include stealing doors in Detroit, films like Black Panther, Five Heartbeats, and New Jack City, and the shooting of Jacob Blake. The title refers to Nino Brown, a New Jack City character Wesley Snipes stars as.
== Description ==
Lupe gets a sword, and confesses to something he stole in Detroit. They discuss "Black Panther" & Royce's unusual approach to movie-watching. Royce recalls his faux pas the time he met Wesley Snipes & Leon Robinson. The conversation ends on a more serious note, reflecting on Jacob Blake and the state of policing in the U.S., with Lupe, Tom and Royce each offering a unique viewpoint.
== Transcript ==
 	
Lupe Fiasco 	The Lupe and Royce Show is a Say What Media production, the presenting sponsors, Blue Microphone. What up, this is Lupe Fiasco, a rapper.
Royce da 5'9"	Hey yo what up, this is Royce da 5'9", also a rapper.
Tom Frank 	And this is Tom Frank, I'm just a regular dude. And you're listening to The Lupe and Royce Show.
 	
Tom Frank 	You ended up getting that sword?
Lupe Fiasco 	Of course, I got it this morning.
Tom Frank 	You did? I wanna see it.
Lupe Fiasco 	I'm not g—I'm not, no.
Tom Frank 	Why not?
Lupe Fiasco 	I'll show it to you later. Because I got to walk all the way over there, and take it off the stand, and take it out the wrapping thing. And then I got to show it to you and all of that stuff. I don't wanna do that right now.
Tom Frank 	How did the sword come to you? Does it come in like a...
Lupe Fiasco 	In a box.
Tom Frank 	FedEx show up with it?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, like a person. I don't know if it was FedEx, but, I mean.
Tom Frank 	I mean that's a weapon. You can't just put a weapon through regular...
Royce da 5'9"	Was the delivery guy wearing a karate gi?
Lupe Fiasco 	I didn't even see him, I just heard like beeps on a machine. Like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Then I heard like a loud thud on my porch. I was like, this bastard just slung my sword on the porch. I knew it was coming today though, so that's how I knew it was my sword.
Tom Frank 	You're telling me they leave a sword, an actual weapon, just sitting on your front porch?
Lupe Fiasco 	A box. The box isn't shaped like a sword, it's a box. You don't know what's in it. Because that's how your mind—?
Tom Frank 	That's how my mind works, yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	It's a big sticker that says—
Tom Frank 	This is a sword.
Lupe Fiasco 	No, it says this is very sharp.
Tom Frank 	Oh.
Lupe Fiasco 	Like whatever's in here is very sharp, and there's like a skull and crossbones.
Tom Frank 	Yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	They actually leave your packages, they don't like, do you how they do me? They never leave my packages, they just leave stickers on the door.
Lupe Fiasco 	You need to move into a better neighborhood.
Royce da 5'9"	I'm not talking about at my house, I'm talking about at the studio here.
Lupe Fiasco 	You need to get a studio in a better neighborhood.
Royce da 5'9"	Send me some listings to better neighborhood.
Lupe Fiasco 	I mean, Royal Oak is an amazing neighborhood. I've been there, it's beautiful.
Royce da 5'9"	Oh, man. You want me to move my studio to Royal Oak?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, nobody told you to open up a multimillion dollar studio in the depths of the ghetto.
Royce da 5'9"	Oh, man. I think they got something against me, man. I think it's a personal thing against me. They don't want me to have my packages.
Lupe Fiasco 	I think they don't want anybody else to have your packages. That might be it. Like if you lived in a good neighborhood, they might just—had the studio in a good neighborhood—I think they would just leave 'em. But if they feel like—
Royce da 5'9"	It's not even the neighborhood, it's not even a neighborhood, man, it's like an industrial area. Nobody stealing packages over here.
Lupe Fiasco 	I've once stole the door off of a house in Detroit, put it in the back of my car.
Tom Frank 	For what reason did you?
Royce da 5'9"	Why'd you do that?
Lupe Fiasco 	What do you mean, why'd I do that?
Tom Frank 	Well, I mean, that's a legitimate question. Why would you do this?
Lupe Fiasco 	I needed a door.
Royce da 5'9"	I need a door. You got any extras?
Lupe Fiasco 	Detroit has many doors, clearly.
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, but they all attached to houses. You said you got doors.
Lupe Fiasco 	I was in Detroit and was working on like an art project with actually Jessica Care Moore. All right, the poet who's based in Detroit, a wonderful, wonderful poet. And for some—I got up there for some reason and we were we were talking about doing a, just this art exhibit just for the sake of doing it. And one of the exhibits, you know, for some reason required a door. And I was like, hey, where can we get a door? You know it was like, off one of these houses.
Tom Frank 	Home Depot?
Lupe Fiasco 	Home. Take 'Depot' off and just 'Home'.
Royce da 5'9"	Home Depot, however, is not one of our sponsors.
Lupe Fiasco 	They're not. I'll only steal from my sponsors.
Tom Frank 	So now there was a person out in Detroit with no door.
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh no, the house was completely abandoned. Completely run down. It was probably more snow in the house than it was outside.
Royce da 5'9"	You ever squatted in the house and people thought that it was vacant, so they stole the door?
Lupe Fiasco 	Wait, wait. So you squatted, in Detroit?
Royce da 5'9"	No, I don't have squatting in my history.
Lupe Fiasco 	Okay, I'm just making. You never know. Like you might've had one of those moments where you were just like, ah, I'm homeless. I need to. But Detroit has so many homes, so. You know, I have a home.
Royce da 5'9"	I have been homeless, but never squatted. I can always find a friend's house to sneak in, you know, spend the night over somebody's house.
Lupe Fiasco 	Hm. Isn't that squatting, though? Oh no, squatting is when it's in an ab—
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, squatting is just when you just take something, you just take an abandoned house and just you just decide it's yours, now. So, you're just going to go in there like, yo, this is mine now.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah. So under those auspices, recognizing, really assessing that this place was abandoned, they had a really nice door. I don't even think the door was really attached to the hinges that well, anyway. And I just went in and took it, put in the car and dropped it off at the artist's house. And that was just that story.
Royce da 5'9"	That was an amazing story.
Lupe Fiasco 	Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.
Tom Frank 	We got a lot of things going on in the world today. Can I bring up, can I bring up some more sensitive things?
Royce da 5'9"	That was sensitive.
Lupe Fiasco 	What's more sensitive than stealing someone's door? Like that's very sensitive.
Tom Frank 	Do you know Chadwick Boseman? I want to, I want to talk about him for a second.
Lupe Fiasco 	Ah, yes. Very much. Rest in peace, Black Panther.
Tom Frank 	I mean, did you know him?
Lupe Fiasco 	No, I did not know him.
Tom Frank 	Not only was he a good Black Panther, but he also played Jackie Robinson in 42.
Lupe Fiasco 	Really good film. Saw it on a plane. Royce, did you know Chadwick?
Royce da 5'9"	I never got a chance to meet him. I never even seen him around before. But, big fan. That's a big one, that's a big loss.
Tom Frank 	How about the Black Panther? We've talked about Black Panther before. You like that movie?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes, we have.
Royce da 5'9"	T'Challa.
Tom Frank 	That's a great movie.
Royce da 5'9"	I didn't really see Black Panther all the way through.
Tom Frank 	You didn't watch the whole movie, you just watch the beginning?
Royce da 5'9"	I don't need to.
Tom Frank 	What do you mean, you don't need to?
Royce da 5'9"	It's already great. Why do I need to watch it for, it's already great. I don't need to. It's already great.
Lupe Fiasco 	Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean?
Royce da 5'9"	The movie itself, the concept itself. And how well did it did, was just a message to Black people how well something can perform, as long as we support it in solidarity. So I didn't need to watch it, i's already great.
Lupe Fiasco 	Okay.
Royce da 5'9"	I exit out of a lot of movies when I'm watching them, like very rarely cannot watch a movie all the way through. But I was watching it, it was great, I thought it was great before I started to watch it. And it wasn't a movie that I felt like I needed to watch all the way through, it's already great. It's already a legacy act, bro.
Lupe Fiasco 	At what point in the film did you exit out, as you said?
Royce da 5'9"	I never have a particular exit point. One day I might sit down, I might watch it all the way up until, you know, I see like a bunch of beautiful Black women. Then I might get on the phone. Then I might come back another day and I may just be flicking through the channels and I catch it from when they're like, everybody's all muscular and cut up. And I'm like, oh, I'm watching it. And then I maybe I may go do something else. Then I might see it from another place. Point I'm making is, it was already great before all of this. So before I have seen anything, I was already tweeting about how great it was. I don't understand why you don't understand what I'm saying, you have melanin, sir?
Lupe Fiasco 	So how many times have you have seen Black Panther?
Royce da 5'9"	More than I care to remember. I've seen it tons of times. I just never seen it all the way through. It was never all the way through.
Lupe Fiasco 	So, you don't know what happened at the end of Black Panther, basically?
Royce da 5'9"	Try me, Lupe Fiasco. Go ahead, try me.
Lupe Fiasco 	[Laughs.] Okay, what happened at the end of Black Panther? Spoiler alert, ladies and gentlemen.
Royce da 5'9"	Like, which part?
Lupe Fiasco 	You don't know, do you?
Royce da 5'9"	Which part you talkin' about? You got to be more specific.
Lupe Fiasco 	I'm talking about the end of the movie.
Royce da 5'9"	A lot of things happen. Are you talking about like, what do you mean? Storyboard-wise or what are you talking about?
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes. Give me some of the multiple strands 'til the end of Black Panther, the multiple potential nine potential what really happened. You don't even—yes, I'm listening.
Royce da 5'9"	T'Challa, T'Challa!
Lupe Fiasco 	Have you ever seen the end of any movie ever?
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, plane movies.
Lupe Fiasco 	Such as?
Tom Frank 	What's your top movie that you actually watched all the way through?
Royce da 5'9"	Probably Five Heartbeats, only the greatest thing to ever happen to cinema ever in the history of movies.
Tom Frank 	Five Heartbeats?
Royce da 5'9"	Absolutely, why'd you say it like that? You wanna hear about it?
Tom Frank 	I've never, I've never seen it.
Royce da 5'9"	Oh, you need to watch it, then.
Lupe Fiasco 	Why not?
Tom Frank 	I just, I've never seen it.
Royce da 5'9"	Do you every sing in the shower?
Tom Frank 	Yeah, I'm a great singer in the shower.
Royce da 5'9"	Well, you can't be a great singer in the shower until you watch Five Heartbeats. I'm sorry to let you know that.
Tom Frank 	I will, I will watch the Five Heartbeats. It never crossed my mind to watch Five Heartbeats.
Lupe Fiasco 	Do you think there was a failure at the marketing level that it never penetrated your lily white circle?
Tom Frank 	It's what, early 90's?
Royce da 5'9"	Doesn't matter when it was.
Tom Frank 	Well, I'm just saying back—it's '91.
Royce da 5'9"	Okay, so we're clear. So we're clear. You have a TV, right?
Tom Frank 	Do I have a TV? Yeah, I have a few TVs.
Royce da 5'9"	Okay, okay, whew.
Tom Frank 	Okay, so you're both recommending that I go and watch the Five Heartbeats.
Lupe Fiasco 	First of all, I'm not.
Royce da 5'9"	I'm recommending that you get a TV. That's an acronym, stands for television. You got to get one of those. Get a TV.
Tom Frank 	I will, I will watch the Five Heartbeats.
Lupe Fiasco 	Watch it to the end. Don't be like—
Tom Frank 	If I watch a movie, it's from beginning to end.
Lupe Fiasco 	I've seen some of it. I think I've seen it all the way through. The Five Heartbeats is like a grown-up people's movie. So maybe you are a little bit more mature than I was and got sucked into it. Or you in a family that actually was like, hey, we got to watch Five Heartbeats. Back in the day we were watching like action films and like crime dramas. So I'm saying all of like the Black crime dramas. That's what we were watching, so like Juice, Straight Out of Brooklyn, which is terrifying, terrifying film. For me, anyway. And Sugar Hill. We was watching like New Jack City.
Tom Frank 	Now, I do like New Jack City.
Royce da 5'9"	Not only have I seen New Jack City, but I went up to to a studio one time to see KG from from naughty by nature. And I've seen Wesley Snipes and Leon both in the same room.
Tom Frank 	Ooh.
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh, wow. Shout-out to KG.
Royce da 5'9"	Shout-out to KG. I was very drunk. I've called Wesley Snipes Nino, and he didn't like that too much. And then I went up to Leon, I went up to Leon and I tried to like, you know, you know, one of those little one of those first devices that they made where you could, like, film stuff and do like videos really quick and then plug them right up, USB to your computer? I can't remember what it was, I was trying to do like a video with Leon, and he was just like, "not right now." And I remember just really, really, really thinking to myself, like, I should beat this motherfucker's ass. Because I was so drunk, I don't know what came over me. I almost forgot he was Leon for a minute.
Tom Frank 	I was gonna say, this is the guy from your favorite movie of all time?
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	Exactly. Your idol, he's teaching you how to sing in the shower, you were finding that. And you meet this mean. In addition to another amazing, phenomenal Black actor. And because he tells you "not right now." He didn't tell you no, he said not right now. Your first thought was, 'I'mma beat his motherfucking ass?'
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, 'cause we're—not his motherfucking ass. I'm gonna beat this motherfucker's ass. It's that's the difference. But I was thinking to myself, you know, like, when a guy is such a good actor, you know, you think of all of the things that he did great in a movie, but you also think of the things that he did in the movie to piss you off. I ain't like how he played Duck in the movie, you know what I mean, so I kind of want to fuck him up just for how he did his brother in the movie. You know.
Lupe Fiasco 	But that's a movie, though, you're meeting him in real life.
Royce da 5'9"	I was drunk, bro, I don't know why actors always have a problem with like. When they when they do such a classic role, they have a problem with you bringing that up. So Wesley Snipes was like, "hey man, I played a lot of roles since Nino." So?
Lupe Fiasco 	Wait, stop, you can't do this.
Royce da 5'9"	Why not?
Lupe Fiasco 	First of all, it's a sacred space.
Royce da 5'9"	No, it's not.
Lupe Fiasco 	When you meet people—yes it is.
Royce da 5'9"	People see me all the time and go, "hey man, I love 'Boom'!" I don't go there, that was like in 1999. I've done something that's not cool to do.
Tom Frank 	Wait, so you're saying it's not okay to go up to an actor and talk about a past movie of his?
Lupe Fiasco 	I would say not in the sacred space, like the studio. Like maybe, and definitely not initially. Like straight up off the bat. I think you would have to kind of see if they're interested in getting to talk about the film—
Royce da 5'9"	No, Wesley Snipes was in the process of. He had a bunch of people like in a room, and it was like he had something up on a screen and he had everybody looking at it. And everybody was quiet, staring at the center of the screen. And he was talking just like Bruce Lee. And he was going "Now, see the water, the water." He kept referring to water as water. And he was trying to describe something really deep about water. You know how Bruce Lee used to be like, you got to be water, you got to you got to be water. Like he was trying to like, he was talking like a karate master. It was really weird, bro. So I think when I interrupted him and called him Nino, I think that he wanted me to call him Bruce Lee, because that's what he was doing at the moment.
Tom Frank 	I'm starting to see his point now, I'm starting to take his side now, if he was deep into water.
Lupe Fiasco 	Or I'm thinking that he was putting on a very engaging presentation and maybe a pursuit of his that we may not be completely aware of, but he seems to be a very spiritual brother. And you come in and say, "hey, ain't that Nino Brown over there?!" He trying to teach a guided meditation course, you come in smelling like Hennessy and rice Krispie treats.
Royce da 5'9"	Listen, first of all, it wasn't Hennessy and it was Patrón. And Wesley Snipes if you're watching, I know you know a lot of karate, you can kick my ass, then I'll be different.
Lupe Fiasco 	Listen, man. I've seen Mr. Snipes in Puerto Rico one time. It was pretty cool.
Tom Frank 	And did you call him Nino Brown?
Lupe Fiasco 	No, I did not.
Royce da 5'9"	Why not!
Lupe Fiasco 	Because I respected the space.
Tom Frank 	Did you at least say hello?
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't even remember if I said hello. I definitely didn't call him Nino.
Royce da 5'9"	Nino!
Lupe Fiasco 	Like I'mma beat your motherfucking ass, like I didn't do that.
 	
Tom Frank 	You're listening to Lupe and Roye Show with Lupe Fiasco, Royce da 5'9", and Tom Frank.
Lupe Fiasco 	We want to thank Blue Microphones for supporting our show. For 25 years, Blue has helped people to find and amplify their voices. And today they had a mic of choice for millions of musicians, podcasters, and YouTubers. No matter what kind of content you create, Blue has a setup that will make you sound and look great. If you've ever thought about creating your own podcast or stream, check out the Yeticaster. It's a complete mic and boom arm system that connects to your laptop, bringing the ultimate broadcast studio to your home or office. Now is the perfect time to start your creative project. Visit BlueMic.com and click "get started" to start telling your story.
Tom Frank 	Royce.
Royce da 5'9"	Yessir?
Tom Frank 	Jacob Blake, I want to hear your thoughts.
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah. I mean, we as Black men, we're just being attacked. What America is doing is they're finding loopholes and shit like that instead of just looking at the obvious. They shot the man in the back eight times. They saying that he had a knife in the car, that they found a knife in the car. So fucking what? What does that have to do with anything? Like the law is, you can't use excessive force unless you are in imminent danger. Your life is in imminent danger. There's no way for your life to be in imminent danger with somebody's back to you, unless he's going to grow arms out of his back and then he gonna throw the knife over his head and catch it with the arms that you just grew out of his back and then attack police somehow that way. But there's plenty of footage of white people being pulled over by the police and doing all kinds of crazy shit.
Tom Frank 	And they don't get shot.
Royce da 5'9"	There's no, it doesn't even seem like it's a thought of excessive force in their heads.
Tom Frank 	Yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	So that's my problem. My problem is the justice not being doled out equally. And everybody needs to know all of the fucking facts whenever it's a Black person. I don't like that.
Tom Frank 	Yeah. Just looking at sports. Do you think that that is an eye opener to have people come out and like literally shut down leagues, to completely stop and make people think?
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, it's like a last resort type of thing. It shouldn't be necessary. It shouldn't have have to come down.
Tom Frank 	It shouldn't be necessary. But do you think that was a positive thing?
Royce da 5'9"	I think it was a positive thought, but not not continuing it out and kind of like. I don't want to use the word faux. So I'm going to say for lack of a better term, but to, you know, to just kind of faux and get right back out there, it kind of defeats the purpose. You know, like when you make that kind of stand, that stand in solidarity, that's something that you have to stick to. And that's—when you do that, that means that you have their attention, so at that moment now it's time to start making demands with like a clear narrative. You know, like everybody's not just yelling and complaining all at the same time, but actually saying, "okay, this is this is the contract we need with America between America and Black people in order for us to continue to perform."
Tom Frank 	How do you actually do that? You know, these athletes all stopped their respective sports and everything was cancelled. But I don't know if they have any clue of what to do next. They got everybody's attention. And then, as you said, they literally just went right back to work. But I think it's because they. What what do you do? Like what? What would you actually do?
Royce da 5'9"	I think they know what to do. They know what to do, but they get. There's a lot of incentives. There's a lot of incentivized ways to get them to to go back to doing what they were doing. You know, there's a lot of people that they use as liaisons to go talk sense into him. You know, you've seen the headline, you know, Obama talks to LeBron, boom. Next thing you know, back to hopping.
Tom Frank 	Yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	And the world can go back, the country can go back to being corrupt. And you know what that's going to lead to? You're going to that's going to lead to the people who don't who feel that they don't have a voice protesting more and more things are going to get burned down, you know what I mean? And then more people have more militias are going to be out there killing people, especially if this kid get off with murder. If he get off with murder, this is going to incentivize more people for militias to go kill more people. I don't understand how is that solving anything? You know what I mean?
Tom Frank 	Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, this is all making us all talk about things, right? You and I are talking about this right now. When would we have ever talked about this unless this just happened?
Royce da 5'9"	I feel like we've been at that point for the whole pandemic. You know, like there's been a lot of things that happen. It forces narrative. And I just feel like now it's time to go from narrative to action.
Tom Frank 	Action. Yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	And then, you know, the way the things are happening, the way that they shot that kid in the back like that. It just doesn't look like. The people who are supposed to care just doesn't look like they care. That's not policing, that's not policing on any level. And I know a whole bunch of police officers. I'm super tight with a whole lot of high-ranking officials. And all of them told me that's not that's not policing. That's not how you police.
Tom Frank 	Yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	I just took a gun class because I'm getting my gun license. I just took the class last month and, you know, the guidelines for which you can carry and for which you can use it is very similar to the same guidelines that the police officers have to adhere to. But the police officers are actually held to a much higher standard, because they've actually been trained, you know, and it's like. You can't overkill somebody, you shoot to put the person down. You use excessive force to put him down, and that's it. You can't even shoot somebody in your house eight times. They shot him eight times and they shot him in the back.
Tom Frank 	In the back, yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	If somebody comes into your house and you have a licensed firearm and if they have Lupe Fiasco's VCR and they're running out the door, Lupe Fiasco can't shoot him in the back to get his VCR back. You know, even if he has a knife hanging from his belt.
Lupe Fiasco 	No, that's not. That's your interpretation of the law, which is one side of it. That's not what the law says. And that's definitely not what the law says about police. And there's no difference whether they're running towards you, running away from you. If somebody is in the process of a felony, an action of a felony, and you are the police officer, it's at their discretion to the amount of force that they use. But they're well within their bounds to shoot someone in the back, in the chest, in the head, whatever it is. To stop someone that they feel is either on their way to get a weapon, has some type of weapon that they can't see, they haven't properly searched this person. And it may be that this person has, like they said, admitted to having something, they just don't know where it is. Right. So that's what the law says and that's been going back, you know, that's from law that I read from 1950. Right, and it was the different circumstances in which you can use that force in a misdemeanor situation and in a felony situation. And it changes and it all comes down to the discretion of the officer in that period of time, because the officer and the suspect are the only ones who know that situation the most. Nobody else knows. The judge doesn't know. The D.A. doesn't know. The protesters don't know. The people who are fully informed and fully experts about those situations are the people that are directly involved with it. Right, not to do with one camera angle from over here, another camera angle from over there because all of the camera angles show that one specific perspective. But none of those camera angles showed a police state of mind, that person's state of mind, how the police officer read the situation, how the person was responding to the situation.
So I have police officers in my family now. My dad was a police officer, my sister was police officer, my two brothers are police officers. So I'd go through it in a certain intimacy the same way you have. And I have tons of—I know mayors and different folks like that as well. And there is a certain set of protocols which some police bend to their favor, for sure. And there's there are times when police let people go. Right, there's footage of a of a dude in Atlanta who was at the mall. Black dude, everybody's Black police officers, Black people are Black, he's Black, everybody's Black. Dude has his backpack. He's getting like, he's being confronted by somebody in the mall. I mean, there's no sound, so you don't know what's happening, but. And it's just one shot. There's people antagonizing, he gets into a fight. Who starts and who doesn't know? The dude pulls a Draco, which is a mini AK-47 out of his out of the backpack that he has on, starts waving it around. Right? Police walk up. You know, he gets down, they put cuffs on him, take the gun. I guess they're talking, talking, talking. He uncuffs the guy, gives him the gun back. Right, because the whole situation is legal for him to have the gun. It was legal for him to pull it out in a way that he had it, it was concealed, etc., etc., etc., and a Draco, which even though it's a mini AK-47, is still considered to be a pistol. Not an assault rifle. Right, it's sold as a pistol, right? So just because it's a big-ass pistol doesn't make it a machine gun, even though it should be considered a machine gun. I know this because I have multiple Dracos, right. So the law bends in certain cases and at the discretion of the cop leans to certain places and they operate in the moment. And depending on how they feel about the assailant, depending on how they feel that day.
Royce da 5'9"	You think if that was a white police officer and that Black man pulled that Draco out, do you think that Black man would be living today?
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't know. There's other cases where Black dude or Black cops do pull the guns out and they shoot him twenty times because the circumstances that this guy, this person. Right. Was actively being antagonistic and was a threat and the police felt that he was a threat and those Black cops shot him.
Royce da 5'9"	I know what we better not see. We better not see a Black police officer kill an unarmed white man. That's what we better not see. You're going to see what real outrage looks like. You're going to see with real, real outrage looks like. And I want to see how you're going to respond to that, Lupe Fiasco.
Lupe Fiasco 	What do you mean? I'mma respond by the law. I'mma respond the same way that I'm responding right now. It's one thing to understand your feelings, it's another thing to understand the narrative. It's not—
Royce da 5'9"	I'm not speaking out of my feelings.
Royce da 5'9"	I'm not saying that you are.
Royce da 5'9"	I was paraphrasing the law as it was being explained to me by the people who I know who are in law enforcement. I haven't read law books and shit like that, but I know when I took the gun class, the guidelines that they told me that needed to be followed by the law, by citizen carrying a gun. And then they also talked about the same guidelines that the police needed to adhere to. This came from a DA agent. So, I don't know.
Lupe Fiasco 	Right. At the same time too, a lot of police officers don't know the law. It's not their job to know the law.
Royce da 5'9"	Well why? Why not?
Lupe Fiasco 	Right, I'm talking about all the statutes and all of the—because it's just not their job, that's the job of the DA.
Royce da 5'9"	Why would they not have to know the law?
Lupe Fiasco 	They're not lawyers—
Royce da 5'9"	But they have to enforce. How can you enforce laws if you don't know laws?
Lupe Fiasco 	There's a certain set of. They're looking for crime, right, and it's up for them to observe at the best of their abilities if a crime is being committed.
Royce da 5'9"	How can you observe, a crime is a broken law. That's what a crime is.
Lupe Fiasco 	Because did this person break into this person's house. When I pull up, right. I'm get a call. There's a guy breaking into my house. Do you come up and observe a guy breaking? We all know breaking into your house is a crime. We know robbery's a crime, we know rape is a crime. We know murder is a crime. I'm talking about specific things like did this dude commit computer fraud?
Royce da 5'9"	Well how can you know specific things about laws if you don't know the law?
Lupe Fiasco 	But the commission of a violent act. There's not that many, right? It's a few, it isn't like it's hundreds, but there's hundreds of laws, hundreds of statutes. Right. And it's not impressing upon a cop, a street cop to know all of that. That's why we have cops who go to law school. Right. And to your point about—and I brought that up just to say that some of the worst-trained and the worst interpreters of the law are police, and that comes from. People who sell guns to the police. So police, police can buy guns. It's a little bit different here in California, but in Illinois, we got the same access to what police have access to. Like there's no separation of what the police have and what we have. And California's different. So you can go and you can go into a gun store here and there's a whole other section that unless you're law enforcement, you can't even go into. Right. You're stuck with kind of these civilian stuff.
But in Illinois, because everybody has the same access, everybody shops at the same places. And I have a very good rapport with a few gun dealers in Chicago. And they're like the worst people that come into the store, who do not know what the fuck they doing, are the police. They don't know how to handle a gun. They don't like literally. They come in and like they'll take their gun out and hand it to dude and be like, "hey, can you help me fix this?" And dude's like, "yo, what the fuck are you doing?" Right? You just don't come in here and operate like that. I don't give a fuck if you got a badge because the badge doesn't matter if you're going to accidentally discharge and kill somebody in the store. Right? So, you will be surprised that some of the most well-trained, the most well-understanding of the law and how to operate in and around and above the law are those same militias. Probably know more about the law than the fucking police do.
Tom Frank 	I mean, let's be honest, a lot of the people that that end up becoming cops, too, and this is not to say anything bad, but they might not be the lawyers, the smartest people, the people that have actually memorized every law there is. I mean, they know enough to do their job. I actually agree with you on this one. But what I don't agree with you—
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, and they get a call.
Tom Frank 	And they get a call, and they got to do it. But back to the Jacob Blake thing. I have to say this, though. At the end of the day, whether it's right or wrong, or whatever, legal or not, what could possibly be going through the guy's head that shot this guy, what, seven, eight times in the back? Like even if he thought he was going in for a weapon, you know, that, you know, people were recording this. You know, this is go—how do you just not shoot him in the leg, or take them down? There's eight of you. How many cops were there? There were like, like to me know, I don't care what's right or wrong, but it's crazy. It's crazy. Like, why would you do that? Like, you know, you're going down this road—
Lupe Fiasco 	First, you're not supposed to shoot people in the leg. They don't, they don't train police officers to shoot people in the legs, right. For various reasons. Right.
Tom Frank 	But don't you think they could've brought him down in another way without shooting them seven times?
Lupe Fiasco 	They could have done all kinds of stuff. But here's the thing when it comes to knives and proximity, police officers are taught to shoot, say, you actually have the knife. Right. And do the standing with the knife at a distance. Right. They've done tests and studies that—to cover the maximum distance. I think it's like thirty feet, meaning somebody's thirty feet away from you. Right. You could, there's still not enough time for you to take your weapon out, aim it, and discharge, by the time that person, by the time you do the action, that person has been able to cover like twenty, thirty feet and stab you. So, and this is from thirty years ago, right. Where these questions of, okay, if somebody has a knife, or get a gun, someone gets a a knife at a club, okay, what is a safe distance? And they've done it, and it's like well, it's like fifty feet. But once somebody gets within ten feet, two feet, whatever, I mean. It's again, it's up to the discretion to the cop. Do you want to get. If you feel that somebody has a knife that you haven't searched. Right. And you're like, do I want to get proximate with this person? If I know that I can still get killed by a knife. I might be to kill him, I might be to put a couple of rounds in them, but just they're still able to approach me in a certain capacity. I mean, it's at the discretion of the officer. You want to take that chance as an officer?
Royce da 5'9"	It would be easier for me to judge like a lot of these scenarios without using my emotion and just going by the law. If it seemed like the police officers that we're talking about, did the same. A lot of this shit is emotion. A lot of it is based in their preconceived notion of Black people. Or their prejudged hatred of Black people.
Lupe Fiasco 	Mm-hm. I agree.
Royce da 5'9"	You know, I mean, so it's not just about the law because it's only happening to us. It's not happening to anybody else.
Lupe Fiasco 	I mean, that's the narrative, yeah.
Royce da 5'9"	Go ahead. I want to hear what you have to say.
Lupe Fiasco 	So think about this, you know, big picture. I mean, policing all around the world. When they look at America, and we could play apples and oranges. But I mean, I'm not. I don't plan to live in America my entire life. Right. So I want to move to somewhere else, just to be clear. But understand that policing all over the world, they'll look at America like y'all got it sweet. Like all they did was shoot, all they did was tase you, shit if you were in Colombia, right. They would have killed you, burnt your body, and did all kinds of shit to you, the police. If you were in the Philippines, they just pulling up on people, blowing they brains out in front of their kids. Not no investigation or anything, if you will, and if you are in Kenya. Right, there's cell phone footage of police pulling up. Look where's the do, where's such and such? Pulling them out of the crowd, land him on the ground and executing them in front of broad daylight and nothing happens. No, and they have the footage of you shooting that dude.
Tom Frank 	You're talking about a situation that doesn't have to do with race, though. I think what Royce is saying—
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'. You're conflating the same situation. People are being targeted, that's what I'm talking about.
Lupe Fiasco 	I agree with that. And I understand what you're saying. And I can point to a hundred, I can point to Boyz n the Hood. I could point to Nino Brown. I could point to everywhere that white people and white cops have been educated, that Black people are animals and they're violent. And they're this, and it's reinforced. And there's this and there's that, gangs and rap music, and the whole shit. That shit works.
Royce da 5'9"	But you'd just be justifying it.
Lupe Fiasco 	No, I'm not justifying shit. I'm just agreeing with your point.
Royce da 5'9"	You'd just be finding something to point at to justify wrong.
Lupe Fiasco 	The whole point is, I try and take into consideration everything.
Royce da 5'9"	Why?
Lupe Fiasco 	The narrative, the emotion, the law. Why not? Am I supposed to just go off emotion? Emotions don't win games. I'm trying to win, I'm not trying to prove the police wrong. I'm trying to win. I'm trying to get Black people to a place where we win, what we win, what we have, a society where we feel safe and white people feel that we are, that we're not just animals out to kill them. Right? And emotions is not going to win that battle.
Royce da 5'9"	Well, who the fuck is doing all the killing? When we have white people felt not safe around Black people? When has Black people have been executing white people? What history do we have a doing that?
Lupe Fiasco 	There is a narrative in America that I agree with. Do I believe that the narrative is correct? No. Do I believe that the threat. Am I more afraid of the police then I am afraid of Inglewood? No. I fear Inglewood more than I fear the police.
Royce da 5'9"	Why?
Lupe Fiasco 	That's just me.
Royce da 5'9"	That sounds like an emotion that I have no place to come to.
Lupe Fiasco 	You have s. I mean, my people got they shit shot up and you get the call and you got to go. You got to leave the studio right now because we have war. So I've been in those positions. Right, and it wasn't the police. Right. It wasn't that we did anything to a , that I said something out of a pocket to a , it's just pure greed or pure just we don't fuck with these s. Not because they Black. Right. I stepped on a 's shoes. Right. So, yeah, I've had my interaction with the police, I've had guns pulled out on me by the police, I've had guns to the side of my head from the police. Laughing and smiling. So I've been there, I've done that.
Royce da 5'9"	The difference between those officers and the n-ggers in Inglewood you're talking about, is your taxpaying dollars don't pay the n-ggers at Inglewood. They just a product of marginalized areas that they've been fucking subjugated, areas that they've been marginalized to. Police officers are higher officials. They get paid by our taxpaying dollars. I know you pay your taxes because you'd be in jail if you didn't. And I pay my taxes. We don't get to view them the same. We don't get to put one. We don't get to put the shoe on the other foot until—
Lupe Fiasco 	To me, if you're just saying I pay these s so they shouldn't kill me, you pay s in the street all day that will kill you.
Royce da 5'9"	I don't understand.
Lupe Fiasco 	The same dude that you was hustling in the streets with, the same crew that you was riding around with would be the same s that would put you in the trunk.
Royce da 5'9"	Yeah, but that don't have to pay them to do what I'm talking about.
Lupe Fiasco 	It does, it goes down because I pay these s. They should be keeping me safe. That's not true in the streets. Why would it be true in the police department?
Royce da 5'9"	I think that's our point of contention. You want you want to give the police the benefit of the doubt and I don't want.
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't give the police the benefit of the doubt because I know for one, I know it's not all police. I also know that we don't play all of their salaries. Taxpayers, everybody pays it. So Carl Rittenhouse pays the police salary too.
Royce da 5'9"	What's the point of that point?
Lupe Fiasco 	What do you mean, what's the point of that point? The point is that you acting like we pay their salaries specifically.
Royce da 5'9"	I didn't say that.
Lupe Fiasco 	Like it's not a pool of money.
Royce da 5'9"	I'm saying our taxpayer dollars.
Lupe Fiasco 	Our taxpayer dollars.
Royce da 5'9"	Yes.
Lupe Fiasco 	And I'm saying white people get their shit split by police just as quick as I seen Black people get their shit split by the police.
Royce da 5'9"	But just because that's what you've seen, because that's what you want to see. But that's not the truth.
Lupe Fiasco 	It ain't what I wanna see, I'm not looking for ass whoopings.
Royce da 5'9"	It's only true objectively in Lupe Fiasco's mind, is what I'm saying. You giving them more of the benefit of the doubt, I'm not. I'm holding them to a standard.
Lupe Fiasco 	The police don't give a fuck about me. Or what I say, I just happen to have multiple police officers in my family. I've read the law, I've read the books. Right. I've been to the places. I've been in the streets. I've been in a whole place. I've been to jail, right, I've sat in court, right. I've seen officers sit up there and talk wild shit. I've been pulled over illegally. I've had guns pulled to my shit. I've had my chains stolen by the police. Right, but I've also had police come to a n-gga's rescue. Right. I've also seen that the only option that s had to come to a situation was police. So I'm not for or against these s at all. But at the same time, too, I'm trying to win.
That's it, I'm trying to win and winning means that I'm not finna get everything that I want, right. It's going to be some compromise and it's going to be some shit that we don't like to stomach or like to see. And at a certain point, if we're not willing to accept that and get over that, then we're going to be in the same cycles that we were in before and I don't want that. I don't want to be antagonized to white people. White people ain't my enemy, like, it doesn't even matter to me like that. And I'm not finna put myself or allow myself to be put in a position like that just for the sake of some Black identity code, a law that somehow I missed that other s didn't. As if they're more street than me, or I did more shit in the street than I did, or been around less shit than I have. Or I've spent less time in jail than they have or some shit. I don't know what the fuck happened. But for the sake of that, I'm not finna just live my life in fear of the fucking police and constantly at some type of mental battle. We're trying to get them to act right. I can't even get s to act right. Who I pay.
Royce da 5'9"	Sound like it's a whole bunch of stuff on your mind that you got to work out. I don't think about none of that stuff because I'm not scared of no fucking police. I'm never worried about them doing nothing to me. I'm talking about there's a standard that I hold them to, as the police, that's all. I don't generalize all of them is bad. But I realize the things that I see, I'm not going to be so preoccupied with winning that I'm not allowing myself to see the truth right in front of my fucking face. I can't do that. And I'm not going to compare the fucked up shit that they do to the fucked up shit that Black people do in our communities because the two have nothing to do with each other.
Lupe Fiasco 	I mean, they kind of do.
Royce da 5'9"	They don't.
Tom Frank 	At the end of the day, I mean, don't you both agree? People get shot, white people, Black people. Do more Black people get shot? Likely.
Royce da 5'9"	No, it's not likely.
Tom Frank 	Not likely, it's a definite, it's a definite, I would give that to you. But at the end of the day, don't you think. Police, the majority of police are actually doing what they're supposed to be doing, but there are a lot of bad apples out there. There's still racism. And when push comes to shove, if it's a Black man going for a gun or a knife or something in the back of a car versus a white man, there is going to be a certain set of people that are going to shoot first because he's Black first, because he's white.
 	
Tom Frank 	That's our show for the week. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe or follow. Leave us a review and tell your friends to listen. The Lupe and Royce Show is a production of Say What Media. it's recorded and mixed by Clyde Jennings, our head writer is Lauren Sloat. I'm Tom Frank, and our theme music is by who else? Lupe Fiasco and Royce da 5'9".
Category:The Lupe and Royce Show