Albums Oddisee - The Iceberg (Discussion Thread)

InfamousThoro

InfamousThoro

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Part from an interview he did in July last year. He talks about the theme/concept of his upcoming album The Iceberg. Here's the Whole interview

What can listeners expect from Iceberg? Is it an angry record?

Oddisee: It’s probably one of my more angry records. It comes from my frustration with the lack of critical thinking. It comes from me being called underrated when I’m a musician who makes a living from music. It comes from performing a song that mentions where I’m from and being asked by a fan afterward where I’m from. It comes from ideas I’ve conceived and shared with my peers and they’ve stolen them and taken them, ran off and pitched them to labels and have had success with them and I’ve been cut out. It comes from artists who I’ve been instrumental in the development of their sound and foundation, and I’m not spoken about when they do interviews. So much. It comes from people thinking I decide where I go on tour and being resentful at me for not going to their hometown, not understanding that there’s a booking agent and promoter, I have nothing to do with it. It comes from promoting a show, people saying, “Where can I get tickets?” knowing a quick Google search will find that.

No one wants to think anymore about anything. I feel like it’s my duty to make whoever listens to this record value critical thinking. Whether that be politically, socially, personally, we need to value critical thinking. We need to really listen to what the media tells us, what artists tell us, what movies tell us, what our friends tell us, and really listen to what they’re saying and understand it and critique it, break it apart, reconstruct it, because no one’s doing that. And I feel like my own life has been enriched so much by digging beneath the surface and understanding why things are the way they are.

If someone is racist to me, I’m not angry with them for being racist. I feel sorry for them. Because they come from somewhere that’s seen so much economic strife, from their own government, they don’t know the same people they vote for are the same people that outsource their jobs. They blame the immigrant who comes into town, when that immigrant is contributing, doing jobs they wouldn’t want to do in the first place. They’re not the enemy. They haven’t had access to higher education, and this society has been homogenized, allowing thoughts not to flow freely and allowing hate to be spread. So they’re a victim of their environment and circumstances which is why they’re a racist. And if you know that, you’re not angry with that person, you feel sorry for that person. So that’s what this record is about.

I think there were more leaders in previous eras to question critical thinking for everyone. But the majority of people don’t critically think, and the Malcolm Xs and Martin Luther Kings of the world understood how to critically think for the masses and took it upon themselves to do so. As a result of assassination and demonization, there are less people stepping up to take those roles, out of fear. But there were always those people who took it upon themselves to think for everyone, because the majority of people don’t think.

It’s far easier when another black child is killed by a police officer to take up a picket sign and march in the streets for that child’s death than it is to question what makes a white police officer so trigger-happy. What happened in that officer’s life to make him so fearful that he pulls a gun out, shoots first and asks questions later? Was he ex-military? Did he grow up in an area where he was unfamiliar with minorities? Did something happen in his life to give him this heightened sense of paranoia around people that don’t resemble himself? What happened in his life, and why isn’t there training, psychologically, for these types of officers, knowing they’re going to be patrolling areas where people don’t look like them? That’s what we need to focus on. Not the effect, but the cause. But there’s so much more focus on the effect than on the cause.

Do you think we need more leaders to encourage critical thinking on an individual level?

Oddisee: I don’t want to see more leaders. Most people are not leaders. We’re lying to ourselves if we think that there’s a leader in all of us. There isn’t. Throughout human existence we’ve appointed leaders. There’s always been someone for us to say, “You do it. You do it, king or chief.” It’s just in us. And we need to accept that. But a leader is nothing without followers. He’s a nut, he’s a psychopath, if he’s just out on his high horse by himself. So let’s not underappreciate the value of followership. A leader is just a crazy man until a whole bunch of people follow him.
 
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