I grew up in rural Northeastern Wisconsin. On a golf course. Country music was played in our high school gym’s fitness center. Tractors would sometimes keep you from moving at good speed on county roads. Winters were not the only thing smothered in white.

I grew up at the time when hip-hop and rap cultures were truly breaking out into the mainstream of the United States, but in this rural area, at the infancy of the World Wide Web, I was not aware of it. I didn’t realize much about black culture back then. And I am still learning.

Which is why I found this conversation we had for the podcast so fascinating.

In the twentieth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I welcomed friend of the podcast Patrick Battle, a Chicago-based hip-hop artist, to discuss rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and his album Deltron 3030.

In this episode, we discuss how the album represents the tension between colonialism and post-colonialism, Afrofuturism, and empowerment. The album is positioned in relation to hip-hop, gangster rap, and American white mainstream culture. The social, cultural, historical, and political aspects of the album and hip-hop itself are considered during our conversation.

I learned a lot during this conversation, and I hope a lot of people will listen to it and consider both the positive and negative factors of American culture that we discuss. There is hope out there, and there are examples of how to make things better, but there are also problematic things still happening. Perhaps the more we have honest conversations about the topics and issues addressed in this episode, then the more we can bring more hope and a better future to everyone.