Jay Boykin (00:04.398)
Hey, how's everybody doing today? Welcome to Just Human. I am Jay Boykin and Just Human is a space where we talk about what it truly means to be human, whether it's at work, in our relationships, in our communities, and just in life in general. you know, in this world that we're living in, it's easy to find ways to be divided, but I'm looking to find ways for us to connect.
and live with purpose and still stay true to ourselves. So the good thing about Just Human is that it gives us space to talk about a bunch of different topics. today's one that I've been holding on to for a little while since the Super Bowl. And so we're going to spend a little time talking about culture and
music. So let me let me start off with this. We all have the opportunity to go out to a restaurant and you walk into a restaurant, you sit down, you pick up the menu and you only see one option on the menu. Now if that sounds familiar for those of you that have seen the movie
My Cousin Vinny, great movie. It's an older movie. So some of our younger audience may not have seen it, but it's funny because the main character and his fiance walk into this restaurant in Alabama. They're from New York. They're down in Alabama. They walk into this old school, traditional Southern diner and
They pick up the menu and on the menu there are three choices, breakfast, lunch and dinner. So it's a great scene, but jumping back into reality, let's face it, if we go to a restaurant, we are not looking for just one thing. I think that we all like the opportunity of having some variety and
Jay Boykin (02:31.602)
I believe that our culture, just like a menu, thrives on having multiple things on the proverbial menu. But unfortunately, there are still some folks out there who feel like they need to police those creative spaces and
they get to decide what belongs and what doesn't belong. And so today I want to talk about some of the backlash that came out of two specific things related to music. So number one was this past Super Bowl and the halftime show with Kendrick Lamar. And the second is going to be
Beyonce and her recent album, Cowboy Carter. And so we're gonna talk about that and discuss why culture should be open to all. So let's start with the halftime show, the Super Bowl halftime show. We had what we thought was going to be a really good Super Bowl.
between the Chiefs and the Eagles and it turned out to not be. We had a Super Bowl party here at my house and so we had a few people that were over. The game was not great. The commercials were decent. But I was really looking forward to seeing the halftime show and seeing what Kendrick Lamar and his performance and what they were gonna do. And...
It was interesting because as soon as the show ended, I turned to one of my guests and I said, now let the backlash begin. And she said, why? I was like, there are going to be certain people that are going to lose their minds over the fact that there was another rapper and this
Jay Boykin (04:55.618)
particular performance. And, you she said, admittedly, I'm not, I don't know much about Kendrick Lamar, but I enjoyed the halftime show. And I said, that's probably going to be the thing is that a lot of people surprisingly don't know much about Kendrick Lamar. So let's talk a little bit about him. Kendrick is not some
new artist to the scene and he's not just another rapper. This man is accomplished and I mean very accomplished. We're talking about a person who's got 22 Grammy Awards and he's also got a Pulitzer Prize. Now,
That's huge. He's the first rapper to ever take home that honor. And he is definitely very high up on the list in terms of Grammy award wins. And I'm not even getting into his countless other awards that he has won. I mean, this guy has a lot of...
things hanging around his studio or around his home with awards that have his name on it. So, but despite being this accomplished, the morning after the Super Bowl, and it probably started the night before, you know, the night of the Super Bowl, but I started noticing things the next day, the internet and social media seemed to be on fire with
people saying, I don't know who this guy is. I don't know what, why is this type of music being forced on us? So, you know, I get that there are some people that don't know who he is. I think that that's one of the great things. And we're going to get into this a little bit later about music.
Jay Boykin (07:18.956)
is that there's options. And so the fact that you don't know who he is isn't necessarily horrible, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't belong. The fact that you didn't want to hear it or that you felt like it was forced on you, well, technically it's not forced on you. You could change the channel for a minute, walk away. You didn't have to watch it.
But here's part of the irony in this. The Super Bowl had record breaking viewership.
And the halftime show had record breaking viewership. They said that it was the most watched halftime show in history with over 133 million viewers. Now viewership started to decline after that in the second half, but that was because the game was garbage at that point in time. But it was...
a very watched Super Bowl and a very watched halftime show. So, you know, here's one of the things I know that there are a lot of people out there who really don't like rap, don't like hip hop. They feel like it's on the fringe. But here's the thing, hip hop, this isn't the late 70s, early 80s.
Hip hop is no longer on the fringe. It's not some fad. It's here and it's not going anywhere. It's part of the mainstream culture. And I think that a lot of the resistance to Kendrick Lamar's performance wasn't about taste or anything. I think that it was just a willingness to acknowledge that hip hop is very
Jay Boykin (09:22.21)
dominant in cultural spaces. You know, if you're watching TV, there's a reason why some of the commercials have music that has hip hop in the background. There are a lot of people out there who like it, especially a lot of young people. So just because there are folks out there who don't like it, and I get it, I don't...
like every type of music, there's a lot that I do like and I'll talk about that a little bit more. But, you know, I really have to go back to the fact that you were not forced to watch the halftime show. It was a very well advertised performance. Everyone knew going into it if you were even paying half attention that Kendrick Lamar.
was going to be performing and you had the opportunity to look him up if you wanted to and decide whether or not you wanted to pay attention. But no one chained you down and forced you to watch it. Again, record breaking viewership. People showed up for this. They wanted to see it. again, it is interesting to me that you get certain artists
that take the stage for a mainstream event like this and it's met with unfortunately a significant amount of resistance.
The other thing that I wanted to talk about was Beyonce's Cowboy Carter album and the controversy that surrounded that. So, you know, it seemed like the moment that she announced that she was going to do a country album, the internet went wild.
Jay Boykin (11:29.302)
So there were people out there who were excited and then there were a lot of people who were not. And unfortunately, some of the commentary seemed to point to race and why was this black woman making country music? Why was this woman who was
had never really ventured into the country music genre before. Why was she doing it now? Here's the thing, this album, and whether you like it or not, obviously that's your choice, but there were a lot of achievements with this album. Beyonce was the first black woman to win best country album.
at the Grammys and it won album of the year. And when it dropped and was available for streaming, it practically broke the internet because it broke all of the streaming records. I'm not even going to list all of the records that it won or that it broke. Excuse me. I know that it said that the
the amount of downloads in a day were unbelievable. I mean, she literally almost broke the internet with this album. Now, Beyonce got a lot of flack from all over the place, from people feeling like the album and Beyonce didn't belong in country music. I think that that ignores the fact that there are so many
black artists, past and present in country music. I will share that I like country music. If I pull out my playlist, I've got all sorts of things in there. And country music is part of it. I love some of the collaborations that I have seen with country artists and hip hop.
Jay Boykin (13:56.052)
artist. I've been to some country music concerts in the past. Now, of course, I did stand out a bit in some of those venues. And I've had some comments where, you know, I've been driving down the road, music blaring windows down and, you know, pull up in a parking lot or something like that and have people comment on
I didn't think that you would like that type of music. so the thing that's interesting to me with that is why do we assume that only certain people belong in certain cultural spaces? And why does music or art or food or anything else have to be boxed in and perhaps belong to quote unquote a certain group?
Now, going back to Beyoncé and her album, I don't think that Beyoncé isn't trying to take space in the country music genre. I think that she's expanding it. I think that she brought people who traditionally would not have paid any attention to country music.
they became part of the viewership. And I think that that is a great thing. I think that that's a beautiful thing when you see some of the collaborations that take place with artists who are traditionally one genre and they partner with someone who is in a different genre and they put something together. I even loved Post Malone and his recent album and he went country.
And that's someone who really everything that he had done before did not fit into that genre. Taylor Swift has a lot of music that is in the country music genre and she has written things for other country artists. Now I'm gonna say this going back to Beyonce. I'm not Beyonce's biggest
Jay Boykin (16:20.28)
fan. I have some of her things in my playlist, but I don't love everything that she does. But that's okay. And that's part of the point. I don't usually love all of anyone's art, their music. But I will say this about Beyonce. I do recognize talent when I see it.
Beyonce tops the Grammy list in terms of Grammy award wins. She's got more than anyone, period. I think that she's in the 50s with her number of Grammy wins. So she's very, very talented.
You know, the other thing that's interesting is that between her and Jay Z, what do they do with all of their Grammy awards? Because I think he's got 27. So do they just have a closet in the house with Grammys piled up all over the place? Do they trip over Grammys as they're walking around? Do they yell at each other and say, you know, baby, you left your Grammy land here. It's in the middle of the floor. I don't know when you've got
so many Grammys between the two of you, they've gotta be in the way. But then of course, their home is probably bigger than my entire area code, so they can probably spread them out a little bit. But going back to this whole cultural and music discussion, I really do believe that music especially,
is a place for a lot of different flavors, so to speak. I could you imagine how boring it would be if we go back to what we opened with, that if our music menu only had one thing that we were able to listen to? And I think that most people, I don't know many people that don't.
Jay Boykin (18:42.36)
crossover in their musical taste and enjoy music from different genres. And so I think that having that variety, having artists be able to explore different spaces and try different things, I think that it's a great thing. We've got certain types of music that wouldn't even exist. I mean,
Rock and roll wouldn't exist if someone hadn't taken the roots of blues and jazz and put another spin on it and created a variation that changed the world. And so it's my opinion that music and art and culture in general
will always continue to evolve when the boundaries are pushed, when you have people who are able to take their talents and try some different things with them and see where it goes. You get someone like Kendrick Lamar and his talents and being able to fuse these incredible music tracks with
the spoken word and for those that really pay attention, many times he's got a deeper message in the lyrics that he has there. And then you look at all of the things that Beyonce has done and with this particular album being able to sort of R &B with country, I think that it was a great thing. So.
Culture is not a fixed menu. It's not a fixed recipe. So, you know, if there's something that comes on that you don't like, skip it. Move on to the next song and find something that perhaps you do, you know, that you do like. But trying to police this and decide who belongs and who doesn't belong, that's just not, not the right thing.
Jay Boykin (21:05.688)
The NFL is a business and they've got an army of people who go into the decision making on who's gonna perform at the halftime shows. And I think that they know well ahead of time what's gonna draw and what's not gonna draw and.
You know, the last four to five halftime shows, whether they were your taste or not, they had huge viewership. you know, again, they're a business, they're about making money, they're trying to sell airtime commercials, that type of thing. And I think that they're doing a good job with that. You know, another...
funny story with music and variety is I've talked about in previous episodes that we spend a lot of time down at the lake. have the sickness of having multiple boats, but when we're down at the lake and we are out on our surf boat and we're enjoying time with our friends,
Each of us has our own individual playlist for when we're surfing. And what's so funny is that we listen to everything. We've got everything from like really heavy head banging type rock. We've got eighties. We've got folks who are listening to
stuff from the 70s. And my brother-in-law, I give him grief all the time because on his playlist, he's got Nickelback on there. And so we give him grief with that. But if truth be told, if I'm going to be 100 % honest, I got Nickelback in my playlist as well. I like them too. So really here's my takeaway. Not everything
Jay Boykin (23:30.718)
is for everybody. I don't love every type of music and but that gives me the option to build a playlist that has the things that I like but again I've got numerous genres there. Going back to the analogy with the restaurant I love the fact that I've got that variety and
I can ignore the things that I don't love so much, vegetables, and I can focus on the things that I do like a lot. I'm that person that as soon as I walk into a new restaurant, I don't look at the appetizers first. I don't look at the entrees first. I go straight to see what dessert options they have. So that's one of the things that I really enjoy.
But again, restaurants are not going to survive just serving the one thing. Excuse me. So.
Jay Boykin (24:45.122)
Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar are extremely talented artists and they're not taking up space that doesn't belong to them. Honestly, I feel that they're creating more space for people to step into. And so the next time you, we might have this knee jerk reaction that something doesn't belong here. Just ask yourself why, why does it not belong?
you know, are we holding onto some outdated idea of, you know, what music belongs, where what artists belong, where, or can we just be willing to embrace the fact and the reality that music, art and culture, they're meant to change. They're going to change. It's not meant to stay the same. So,
I just want to reiterate the fact that more representation, more collaboration, more crossovers of artists in two different genres, I think that it is a good thing for all of us. It just creates more on that menu that we have the opportunity to partake in. So I just wanted to chat a little bit about that. As we begin to wrap up, I want to recap.
that we talked about some of the backlash that came from the Kendrick Lamar performance at the Super Bowl halftime show and Beyonce's backlash that she received over her Cowboy Carter album and the seeming resistance to evolution when it comes to music. And so,
We talked about the fact that music and art thrive on variety, just like a good menu. And let's just embrace it, but also recognize the fact that everything is not meant to be for everyone. Hence the reason for the variety. So I really do appreciate everyone's time paying attention to just human in this episode and whether you're watching this on YouTube or tuning in on your favorite.
Jay Boykin (27:07.704)
podcast provider. you so much. Maybe you'll subscribe so you don't miss upcoming episodes that we have. If this resonated with you and you think it might resonate with someone else, feel free to share it so that others can hear it. as we end the show, just want to say this, keep an open mind and let's explore the full menu that our culture has to offer us.
And until next time, let's stay curious, stay open, and let's keep exploring. Take care.
