TRAVIS SMILEY

The Man With a Plan Tavis Smiley’s Agenda for Getting America Back on Track HOST INTERVIEW

uch like Al Gore, talk show host-turnedauthor Tavis Smiley claims he has no interest in running for public office. But from his actions of late, which include hosting his annual State of the Black Union symposium in Feb ruary as part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown; releasing the bestselling book The Covenent In Action, a sequel to last year’s The Covenant With Black America; and announc ing plans to host two presidential forums to be broadcast on PBS this summer, it’s clear Smiley genuinely wants to make a difference. What follows is a transcript of our in-depth discussion on matters ranging from the African-American imprint on American history to the sorry state of our nation’s political system, and what each and every one of us can do to help fix it. M BY ALEX LASSITER

How did you initially get involved with the 400th anniversary Jamestown celebration? I was asked by the governor and the people of Virginia to get involved in this, primarily because when the story is told of the founding of America, it is most often told through the eyes of the immi grant arriving at Ellis Island. That is a powerful and poignant story that needs to be told, but it is not the only story that needs to be told. There is this place called Jamestown, Virginia, where my ancestors and the ancestors of millions of other African-Americans first arrived. Before the Plymouth pilgrims, you first have the Jamestown Africans, and that untold back-story of America needs to be told. These Africans, and others, oftentimes arrived at Jamestown against their will, and this year marks the 400th anniversary commemoration. I try not to say “celebration” because, for African-Americans, there’s nothing to celebrate here per se. But it is a commemoration of what it means for black folk to be on this journey in America for 400 years, which is pretty significant.

Considering that controversial past, why did you decide to hold your annual sy posium at James town this year? To try to raise awareness of what Jamestown means and what the African-American imprint on America is all about. That imprint is undeniable, and hopefully in this poignant year of our being here we can get some conversation going about this other story that makes American what she is.

Organizers solicited advisory councils represent ing black Americans, who wanted an important national symposium. Did they have a specific agenda in mind when they asked you to host it, or did basically they turn it over to you and let you do your thing? The latter. For eight consecutive years during the month of February, which of course is Black History Month, I have organized and moder ated what has become the preeminent conversa tion about the critical issues that confront black America. We call it the State of the Black Union, and they televise it annually on C-SPAN. Interest ingly, the two people who first made contact and asked me to do this happen to be two well-known actors who live in Virginia, Tim Reid (best-known as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati) and his wife, Daphne. They own a TV studio in Virginia, and Daphne happens to be on the state committee, so they asked me to go to lunch a few years ago when I was giving a speech in Richmond. They had been dispatched by then-governor Mark Warner to talk to me about my interest in being involved, so it just became a matter of using Jamestown 400 as a backdrop for our conversation.

Did the historical context of Jamestown add anything to this year’s event? Absolutely. The timing worked out perfectly, because we released The Covenant In Action, the companion to The Covenant With Black America, which went to #1 on the New York Times bestsell er list last year. The setting, timing and everything just worked out perfectly, with about 15,000 coming to Virginia from all across the country. It was by far the largest gathering we’ve ever had, with overflow rooms and people who couldn’t get in and had to turn around and go home. I actually clocked this in the car I was riding in, and traffic was backed up for over three miles at 7AM with people just trying to get into the parking lot.

How would you say the state of black America has changed most in the years since you started host ing the symposium? There’s one school of thought inside black Amer ica that says that what we do is talk too much; that all we’re doing is talking, but not acting. I don’t subscribe to that. I think that there is value in having rich dialogue. I think what’s wrong with America, quite frankly, is that we are too often caught up in monologue and never get around to having

Do you think it’s helping to change the way people in the black community view this sort of intellec tual exchange of ideas? I really do. C-SPAN has gotten more requests for this videotape than any other show for eight consecutive years. All across the country, there’s a ripple-like domino effect, with this national conver sation inspiring African-Americans to conduct lo cal conversations, like the State of Black Cleveland and the State of Black Atlanta. But what’s changed most dramatically is the fact that, now that these two bestselling books have come out, it has raised a whole level of appreciation inside the publishing world for the fact that African-Americans read. A few years ago, with the impact of Terry McMillan, they discovered that black people read fiction, but now they know that we read nonfiction as well. And now we have an agenda around which black

I THINK THAT THERE IS VALUE IN HAVING RICH DIALOGUE. I THINK WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA, QUITE FRANKLY, IS THAT WE ARE TOO OFTEN CAUGHT UP IN MONOLOGUE AND

NEVER GET AROUND TO HAVING MUCH DIALOGUE.

much dialogue. When you go to Washington, on every other corner in the nation’s capital, you see a Conservative think tank, from the Manhattan Institute and AEI to the Heritage Foundation. There’s really only one black think tank, called the Joint Center for Political Studies, which is centered around and dedicated to the issues of black people. I’m not casting aspersion on [Conservative think tanks], but I’m saying that they understand the value in dialogue, reading, writing and research. Our symposium essentially becomes like an annual black think tank, empowering the millions of people who watch it on television.

people can start to act, with books outlining what the agenda is and how to put it into action. I literally just got off a conference call: When we were at James town, the president of PBS joined us to announce that this summer I’m going to be moderating two presidential forums live in prime time. The first will be the

Democrats at

Howard University on June 28, then at Morgan State on September 27 for the Republicans, and we’ll be talk ing about the issues in these books with all of the candidates. That is historic in and of itself.

Talk to me a little bit about your Covenant with Black America: How do you hope to impact the lives of African-Americans over the next few years? If you take the word “black” out of the cov enant, what you get is a progressive agenda for moving America forward. We see this as no different than what Dr. King did during his era. His leadership came out of black America and was on behalf of advancing black America, but the whole nation benefited from it. So what I’m hoping people will get out of this is the fact that you are the leader you’ve been looking for. That’s the message we keep delivering. Make a covenant with yourself, your community, your creator, to use the skill and talent you have to make a mean ingful contribution. I believe that our love and service to each other is the rent we pay for the space we occupy. Dr. King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela all changed the world as we know it, but at the center of the message was this notion of loving and serving everyday people. I’m hoping that this text will inspire people to care for even the least among us, and to realize that everybody has value and has a contribution to make. A strong community does not need a leader, because if everybody becomes a committee of one, it fundamentally and unapologetically changes the definition of leadership. I’m not trying to run for office, so it’s not about that, but I do want the people who are running to understand these issues. We live in a world where, if we don’t grab hold of the reality of people being responsible for making some sort of contribution, if we keep thinking all these problems are somebody else’s, we’re going to literally and figuratively explode, as a nation and as a planet.

How do you feel about the state of the American political system as we enter the early stages of campaigning for the 2008 elections? I think our democracy is dysfunctional and everybody knows it. The reason a guy like Barack Obama can get the traction that he’s getting is that people see him as a panacea, a fresh face, something new. I’m hoping that the energy that has been infused into the campaign season already, in part because of who’s running– Hilary, Barack, a Latino like Bill Richardson on the right, and Giuliani– in part because of the condition that we find our country in after six years of Pres ident Bush, and in part because of the Covenant, will energize this contest in an interesting way.

For young people reading this story who might be frustrated with the entire American political system, who maybe feel that their vote doesn’t matter or their voices aren’t heard by the pow ers-that-be, what advice would you give them on effecting positive change? When you study history, there is no major movement for social change, whether in this country or anywhere in the world, that did not have at its apex the involvement of young people. Nothing ever changes for social progress without young people at the nucleus.

Dr. King may be the greatest leader we’ve ever produced, but the Civil Rights movement didn’t really turn until young folk took to the streets. If you go to South Africa, Nelson Mandela was another great human being who went to prison for 27 years, but when those kids took to the streets of Soweto, it changed the conversation about apartheid. In Tiananmen Square in China, when those kids laid their bodies out in the streets in front of those tanks and dared the tanks to run them over, it changed the conversation. The point is that the courage, conviction and commitment of young people is absolutely essential to any real movement for social change, and I think it’s important for young folk to understand just how valuable their contribution is.

spiring music moguls could do a lot worse than to follow El-P’s lead. Formerly one-third of influential underground hip-hop group Company Flow, the artist formerly known as Jamie Meline has emerged in the last decade as one of the genre’s most distinctive producers and talent scouts, signing a string of blazing-hot artists– Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock, RJD2 and Mr. Lif chief among them– to his Definitive Jux label. And while he’s only released two solo LPs in the last five years, the new I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead proves he’s still just as unique in front of the mic as he is behind the mixing boards. We recently caught up with El-P as he prepared for a Paid Dues festival set that would find him reuniting with former C-Flow bandmate Mr. Len. How did the things you learned from your time on Rawkus Records af fect the way Def Jux does business? Well, it took some time, but I wanted to create a label that was transparent in terms of the way it did business with its artists. It took about a year into our operations, but we wanted to have it so that, at any given time, the artist knew where their money was and we were accountable for that. It really wasn’t about what I learned from Rawkus, it was just about my desire to work with certain people and create my own team. When you started the label, was there some sort of manifesto outlining your mission? When we first started Jux, all we had were these ideas. We were just a couple of dudes running the label, and we just threw it out there. All of a sudden, we were like, “Oh, fuck!” We were selling records, but we didn’t have business management or accountants or any of that shit. Our artists were like, “What the fuck?!” So I had to get real serious real quickly, cuz that was exactly what I didn’t want. But it took a second to go from being just an art ist-driven thing to realizing that, in order to do it correctly, you really have to become serious about being a pro. You have to have all these things in place, cuz if you’re putting other people’s careers in your hands, you have to make sure that you’re very responsible. How would you rate the label’s progress to date? Well, now I feel like we’re absolutely one of the tightest, most well operated ships in the business. That’s the thing I think has separated us from a lot of other independent labels, even when we weren’t putting a lot of records out. But really, the only thing I ever wanted to do was just put out great records and have an A&R idea based on supporting cats who create, not a commercial hit or something they thought was viable in the marketplace, but their own distinctive voice. I wanted to figure out how to take them at their absolute best and most creative– their masterpiece– and bring it to the public. So was that your unofficial mission statement when you created the label? That basically is it, yeah. My mission statement is to support and nurture everyone else’s artistic statements; to help guide them and give them the type of environment where they feel comfortable really expressing themselves, really going for it creatively and musically, knowing it will be good for their careers. You always hear all these cats on major labels doing interviews where they kind of admit that they don’t really even wanna do this type of music, but they’re just doing what’s hot. People keep arguing about why people aren’t buying the music any more, and it’s because we’re not creating a culture of music. We’re creating a culture of money. You worked with Matthew Shipp and other jazz artists on High Water: What do you get out of a project like that? I got to tackle my fear. When they asked me to do it, I had no idea whether I’d be able to, so I was petrified. But one of my personal guidelines is that, whenever I think something’s too scary for me to do, I’ve got to do it. We need to walk bravely. If I’m given an oppor tunity like that, who am I to say no just because of the possibility I might fall flat on my face? It helped me a lot with the idea of structure, which I have an endless fascination for. The new album features some fairly surprising contributions from non-hiphop artists like the Mars Volta, Trent Reznor and Cat Power. Why did you want to get them involved on the project? If you were to pick any of your favorite hip-hop records and list all of the samples used on those records, they would be from artists you’d never expect anyone to be working with. I would challenge you to find one album that defined your love for hip-hop music that didn’t have some sort of sample or reference from another form of music. For me, as a collector and a connoisseur of ideas, I’m inspired by all of this shit. I have a wide variety of tastes, and I’ve either worked with these people or been friends with these people, and I heard moments that I thought would be cool to include on the album. It was an organic thing– I didn’t write a plan down on paper– that just happened in the right way for me. I wasn’t attempt ing to create a collaboration; I was trying to incorporate people that I liked and thought could enhance moments on the record. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that, and it was really about me bringing them into my world and working them into the ideas I already had. Most of hip-hop’s greatest indie labels have wound up getting swallowed up by major labels. Is that something you’d ever even consider? I’ve always been open to ideas, and there’s a side of me that’s a businessman who’s open to taking meetings and listening to what people have to say. I have done that over the years, virtually every year, with everyone from major labels to major indie distributors. The fact of the matter is, right now I’ll stick to my guns and say no, I don’t think that would be a good idea. If you run a record label, you’d be stupid not to be some sort of student of this business. I am, and I’ve seen too many times what happens. Up until now, we’ve somehow managed to pull through some years just by the skin of our teeth, while in other years we’ve had great windfalls. We’ve never panicked, and I think other labels get bought out too soon because they panic. As the strange illuminati symbols align, as oil companies and record labels merge and shit, I don’t know what the hell’s happening, but there’s some sort of almost ecliptic convergence of all things money-related right now. Frankly, I prefer to have my money in my pocket. (Laughs) A DEF BUT NOT DUMB - WhyEL-P’s Def Jux is the Tightest Ship in the Hip-Hop Biz MUSIC INTERVIEW BY B. LOVE

What do you see as the indie label’s role in that culture? Independent labels are the only sanctuary for artists to even attempt to support all the shit they have in their heads and their hearts. You will never hear from anyone at Def Jux, “Yeah, it’s cool, but where’s the hits?” That’s a big deal. I mean, I like hits (laughs), but there has to be other types of records to balance it out. There has to be the type of record that hits you emotionally, and stays in your life. When we were growing up, we all loved Michael Jackson, but then you also had that Prince record that was like, “This motherfucker made me cry!” My goal is not to perpetually make people cry, but it is to push people’s buttons and to make human records. There’s so much music out there, there’s gotta be enough room for those types of records, and I’d like to provide those for people.

INDEPENDENT LABELS ARE THE ONLY SANCTUARY FOR ARTISTS TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO SUPPORT ALL THE SHIT

THEY HAVE IN THEIR HEADS AND THEIR HEARTS.

How do you balance managing your own career with the day-to-day stresses of running one of hip-hop’s most respected labels? Well, I have a really good team around me and we all work at it all the time. But at the same time it’s a constant battle for me, trying to figure it out, although I am getting better at it. The fact of the matter is that I am making certain concessions. I can’t be too selfish: I sometimes have to wait in line. When I first started the label I thought, this is great, I’m just gonna do my music all the time now! (Laughs) That’s not the case, but I’ve grown to love the other part of my life. Most artists’ lives are singularly about themselves at all times. With me, it’s a little bigger than that: What is Aesop Rock doing? What is Cage doing? What’s Mr. Lif doing? I have to worry about that, but I really do care about it. Then every once in a while I just put it down for myself, because what I’m about is making music. I didn’t grow up fantasizing about having a record label.

The label has an amazing track record. What do you look for in a Def Jux artist? I look for people who have a sound and an idea, who aren’t gonna just throw the first piece of shit that they cre ate out. I try and put records out with a little bit more of a uniform production, when an artist works with a group of producers to create a unique sound for a record. I think that’s a big thing that’s missing in the music industry, where too many albums are just a hodgepodge of songs that have no connection, thematically or musically. You can pick ‘em apart as singles and they work well, but I think the artform of the album is an honorable one that gets ignored. I’m trying to support that idea. You don’t walk into a movie theater, watch three minutes and walk out saying, “That was a great movie!” I grew up being transfixed and transformed by albums, sitting in the dark and listening to records front to back, and that became a huge part of my life. I want to support records like that.

It’s been five years since Fantastic Damage. How would you say you’ve evolved as an artist in that time? With Fantastic Damage, you heard pure spite and rage, and a lot of the rebellion and arrogance that comes with being that age. I still have a lot of that, but now I think it’s tempered. I think this character you’re following that I’ve been creating, which is sort of an amalgamation of myself and my experiences, has a little bit more of a resigna tion to it. I don’t think that I can change everything anymore. It’s the idea of being defeated, but still kicking and screaming and struggling against it. I think that, to some degree, is what this record is about. It’s also about trying to be a regular motherfucker and navigate terrain that’s unique for our generation. We’ve had it easy to some degree, but these are our defining times.