Atonn Muhammad joins Tavis Smiley
CEO and Chairman of the Real Hip-Hop Network, Atonn Muhammad, discusses the comeback of broadcast media and digital platforms and why the culture needs them now more than ever.
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Speaker 1: We close today's program with the CEO and chairman of
the Real Hip Hop Network, Eitan Muhammad. The Real Hip
Hop Network is back. Eitan, good to have you on.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty well. How are you, brother Tavis?
Speaker 1: Man, if I complained, I'd be an ingrate. I'm doing
well and delighted to close our program in conversation with
you for the next few minutes here. When I said
the Real Hip Hop Network is back, what happened? Why
did it have to come back?
Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you, brother, as always.
Speaker 3: You know, the challenge with a lot of black-led, black-operated
initiatives is access to capital.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: That had always been a challenge. But, you know, you
can't keep a good man or a good company down.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We were able to rise and rise again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was at an event not too long ago,
and my friend D.O. Hughley introduced me. And he said,
ladies and gentlemen, you can't keep a good man down
or Tavis Smiley. And it killed, it killed. The room
loved it. Let me ask, what it means for a platform,
a network like Real Hip Hop, to come back at
a moment like this in the culture? Frame that for me.
Speaker 3: At a moment like this in the culture, first things first,
you know, black people in America, you know, have been
you know, literally the voice of pop culture in every aspect,
whether or not it's in music, whether or not it's
in sports. But very often we have not been the
controllers of our images or the intellectual property or pursuits
that come as a result of our talent. And, you know,
I believe it was Kwame Ture, Brother Stokey Carmichael, who
said that, you know, media is revolution. You know, you
need to be able to control your own images, your
own likenesses. You need to be able to be the
architects of what you put out there in the world
in order for you to have true power. If someone
controls your image, they control your likeness. They control your art.
They control your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I am all for owning the platform. I've, I've done
a lot of that in my own career. Um, So
ownership matters. So I love the fact that many of
us are owning these platforms. And yet I'm still not sure,
to your point about who owns the culture. Just because
you own the platform don't mean you own the culture.
Talk to me. Talk to me.
Speaker 2: Well, let's say this.
Speaker 3: We have talked in a lot of cases about, you know,
people who have benefited very much off of the culture.
Speaker 2: And many times it is not people who look like us.
Speaker 3: Hip-hop is still dominated by other faces from people outside
of our communities. And there needs to be an active
coalition of like-minded individuals like myself and others to be
able to have this fight, to be able to make
certain that we can take back and control as much
of our resources and as much as our media, our likenesses,
our images, and our culture as we humanly can. And
we have the resources collectively to be able to do it.
And we've been actively moving towards making certain that we
continue to keep taking our resources back bit by bit.
Speaker 1: So the Real Hip Hop Network is back at a
moment such as this. And in this moment, the assignment
for the network is what?
Speaker 3: The assignment is for us to be able, hip hop
is one of the most powerful cultural imprints in the world.
But there have been stakeholders going all the way back
to the early days, you.
Speaker 2: Know, post-1995.
Speaker 3: And Tavis, you may have heard about the, you know,
the quote-unquote conspiracy theory, you know, about the music industry
wanting to, you know, take control or to eliminate conscious
music from the platform.
Speaker 2: And there was, of course.
Speaker 3: you know, people who I value their opinions and their
insights have reflected to me that there was a cabal
of folks who had investments in prison industrial complex and
wanted to move away from the consciousness of the mid-90s,
which we call the golden era, and move it towards
you know, take a song from P. Diddy, the party
and BS era. I'm not going to say the words.
This was the first song off of the Bad Boy
Records scenario. And we have been in that era ever since.
We want to be able to bring true hip hop back.
And that means being able to make certain that we
can have artists who have nothing but the best information, knowledge, wisdom, understanding,
representing the five core elements, and being able to put
the best images of who we are as a people
out to the rest of the world because that matters
and that counts. You have people like D1 who is
doing that right now.
Speaker 1: You're starting to answer this question right now, but let
me just ask it more expressly, Eitan. Tell me more
about what controlling the narrative looks like. I know your
Indian aim is to control the narrative about who we
are in the world and to the world. But what's
that actually look like, controlling the narrative?
Speaker 3: It starts with being able to, number one, you know,
control the access to capital. You know, they say, you know,
whoever pays the piper, you know, can guarantee the playing
of the tune. So we engage with being able to
launch our own private equity company, Black Sun Private Equity,
so we can be able to finance not only the
real hip-hop network, but other opportunities in the world of
sports media and entertainment, which it just so happens that
our community, you know, dominates, you know, on a cultural perspective,
we want to be able to have an opportunity for players, fans,
and individuals who are participants in the culture to be
able to have ownership in it.
Speaker 1: You're again, you're starting to answer this now, but let
me ask it again, more expressly. What does the reemergence of,
of the Real Hip Hop Network means specifically for artists
and creators?
Speaker 3: It means artists and creators are going to have more control.
Many times you have artists who have come and said
that the proverbial day, Tavis, won't let me say any
positive content, that I have to be able to put
a particular image that may be disparaging to my community
or to my people, because that is what is the
only thing that sells. We're going to give these new
artists freedom to be able to bring back balance to
hip hop culture and allow them to be able to
have the power and freedom, because we control our own airways,
to be able to say the things that need to
be said. And we're talking about a political time where
once you can be able to turn on a tape
or hear in the radio you know, a protest song
to be able to speak to the times. And I
am concerned that when I go to turn to that
for hip-hop, it's very.
Speaker 2: Rare for you to be able to hear.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that some of the true school artists
are back in the studio making music, people like KRS-One,
people like Rakim, people like Nas, and so on. We
need more of that so we can be able to
turn the culture back in the direction it deserves the people.
Speaker 1: He's the CEO and chairman of the Real Hip Hop Network.
It is back. He is Eitan Muhammad. More with him
when we come forward on Tavis Smile. Tavis Smile and
Eitan Muhammad, who's the CEO and chair of the Real
Hip Hop Network. The network is back, and we are
celebrating that and talking about all the ways in which
this network is going to be a boon for artists
and creators to not just control the narrative, but indeed
to own and control their content. Let me just raise
this right quick because everybody's talking about it, and I
want to just get your take on what it means
that this is happening in this moment when we see
the Real Hip Hop Network coming back online. For those
who have followed my career, they know that the very
first night that I was on BET, and I've done
a lot of stuff since BET, and I'm grateful for
these opportunities that God's blessed me with. But most of
the nation, certainly black America, got to know me courtesy
of being on Tom Joyner every day, on radio and
being on TV every night. And the world has changed
so much. But at the time, Tom Joyner was the
only thing syndicated in black radio. And there I was
every day on Tom Joyner talking to 12 million people.
And BET was the only thing on television. And there
I was every night talking to millions more on BET.
And so that's how I got to be known in
black America. Tom Joyner in the morning, BET at night.
You've been around a while. You'll recall that. I share
that story because the very first night of my BET show,
my scheduled guest was Whitney Houston. So BET hires me
to do this show. And I am excited. My very
first night, my guest is Whitney Houston. And over the weekend,
on Friday the 13th of September, which happened to be
my birthday, Tupac had been in the hospital for a week.
But on the 13th, he passed away. BET calls me
and says, we cannot do Whitney Houston Monday night. We
got to change gears. Tupac has passed. And so we
changed everything. And my very first night of my five
years on BET was a show about the passing of
Tupac Shakur. I had an all-star lineup of everybody in
hip-hop on that show that first night on BET talking
about the death of Tupac. Why do I raise this?
I think you know why. Because here we are 30
years later and Dwayne Keefie D. Davis was just sentenced
to 40 years in prison connected to the murder of
Tupac back in 1996. 30 years later 40 years in prison.
This is the story today in hip-hop. And about that story,
Eitan Muhammad, you say what?
Speaker 2: I say, number one, Tavis, I was on your show.
Speaker 3: 30 years ago, 1997, when the Notorious B.I.G.
Speaker 2: Was shot, along with Tupac's mom, Afeni Shakur. Yep. BET Tonight. Yep.
Speaker 3: So this is a little serendipitous story. That we're having
that talk right now, my brother.
Speaker 1: Small world, small world, brother.
Speaker 2: Small world, man.
Speaker 3: And I see it as this. There have been outside
forces who feared the impact of hip-hop culture. And even
though they're putting KPD out as part of one of
the hands that were utilized to be able to basically...
influenced the murder of our brother Tupac Shakur. There was
an entire apparatus, COINTELPRO adjacent, called the hip-hop police, where
hip-hop artists were followed, where they were tracked, where they
were monitored by surveillance, many by police, but also by
federal government. And many people believe that that quote-unquote East Coast,
West Coast battle was in some ways an attempt to
be able to dismantle hip-hop's impact by causing that cultural
divide that had such a devastating effect on the community.
Speaker 2: And as you can see, Tavis, I'm still fighting the
same battle.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, because I was going back in there with
rapping in the name of black, with us being able
to do our best to use hip-hop as a tool
to be able to bridge the gap using information. And
when we're left alone, you know, music like the self-destruction video,
you know, that conscious element, you know, that was always
there has mysteriously, or some would say, you know, systematically
removed from the culture. And our goal is to be
able to make certain that, you know, we don't just
look at Keefie D., We believe that it goes a
lot higher than KFED, the murder of Tupac and others.
And we need to be able to understand how important
our culture is because it is what goes on before the.
Speaker 2: Entire world with how black folks are represented.
Speaker 3: Black culture, you know, is one of the most powerful
cultures around the world in its influence. We need to
be the ones at the steering wheel controlling it.
Speaker 2: Nope. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Just a footnote to
that story I shared a moment ago. So Whitney Houston
was my first guest, my very first out on BET tonight.
All those years ago, 1996. That's a long time ago, man.
I'm getting old. Eitan's not, but I am. And we
canceled Whitney Houston. She understood. She was gracious. And I
kid you not, for the rest of my career, BET, PBS, NPR,
all the platforms I've had access to in the course
of my career, I never got Whitney Houston again. She
and I talked about it one day, but we tried
mightily to just find another date. And sometimes it just
works out where you don't get a chance to, you know,
I've interviewed everybody, but I never, ever got Whitney Houston back.
I hate that. I can't even tell you how much
that disturbs me that I never got a chance to
interview Whitney Houston after counseling her that first night. Anyway,
our remaining moments with A. Tom Hummett, when we come
forward on Tavis Smiley. Tavis Smiley, the CEO and chairman
of the Real Hip Hop Network. It's back, Eitan Muhammad.
I got two minutes left. I'll yield the balance of
my time to you. You will know, you will feel,
you will believe that the Real Hip Hop Network is
successful a few years down the word, down the road rather,
if what? If what?
Speaker 3: If hip hop once again dominates the airwaves, dominates the
cultural conversation, both in politics, both in religions, and also
in black culture. We need to be able to take
our culture back and once again have real hip-hop be
the standard for all hip-hop around the world.
Speaker 1: He is the CEO and Chairman of the Real Hip-Hop Network.
It is back after a couple of decades. And I
wanted to have him on to talk about this, to
celebrate this, and to just get him on the record
for how we will know a few years from now
that this network and everything attendant to it will have
been worth the journey and will be declared and defined
as a success. And there you have it. Eitan, congratulations
on bringing this thing back. Man, I look forward to
tracking the success of it in the years to come.
I appreciate the conversation, brother. Just like that, three hours
are gone. What's tomorrow? Tomorrow's Thursday? So I got one
more live day? I got to come over tomorrow?
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll be here tomorrow. Lord willing, I'm back
tomorrow for another three hours. Until then, thanks for listening
to Tavis Smiley. And as always, keep the faith.