Black kid white town Hip hop George Floyd and brokenness

[Applause]

i’m sorry

hey i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry sorry

you over there

super sorry sorry sorry yeah

um i’m guessing you’re wondering why is

he saying

sorry instead of hello hello thank you

thank you you’re far too kind well

the reason is what i’m about to talk

about has everything to do with two

topics

and those are specific events

surrounding the murder of george floyd

and everyone’s favorite topic race

and i’ve found that when you’re going to

talk about these sort of things

the best thing to do is say sorry right

off the bat right at the top

so the whole thing has a little bit of a

this might sting a bit to it

so with that being said let’s get into

it who

am i well my name is matt allen mr allen

if you’re nasty

and i was born in bronx new york

something that would give me a whole lot

more street cred if it wasn’t for the

fact that i moved when i was very young

to a town called

rosemont minnesota

[Music]

fun fact about rosemont we had three

liquor stores a mr movies

and a blockbuster video before we had

a public library so you know just a

little bit of rosemont trivia to dazzle

your friends with

something that i learned right away

growing up in rosemont

minnesota i actually learned two things

cemented

into the mold of who i was the first was

i love to entertain love to sing dance

you know what i was called back junior

year

to be joseph and joseph in the amazing

technicolor dreamcoat now

i ultimately didn’t get it but i did get

to sing a nice jamaican number so you

know

that was fun which leads me to the

second

thing i learned because growing up in

rosemont minnesota it was clear that i

was unstoppably

uncontrollably and irreversibly black

i’m sorry for those of you who can’t see

color and are like who is this weird

muscle and bone man and what’s he

talking about

my skin has a different shade

than the majority of people i went to

high school with a majority of the

people

that i shared a blockbuster video with

in rosemont minnesota

and when you grow up different in a town

like that you have three options you can

either fight

flee or hide and while i was strong i

wasn’t really a fighter and

i’m not in the fleeing business

so i decided to hide now matt you ask

you’re very wide where were you

expecting to

hide at and to that i say thanks

for that but there are multiple ways for

children to hide

from a world that hates and fears them

i wanted to be an entertainer so i

entertained

i danced i sang i threw myself

into my passion and it became my safe

space

it’s a lot harder to hear the hate when

you have an auditorium

full of people cheering for you don’t

get me wrong i did enjoy it i do

enjoy it for those of you who don’t know

i do hip hop in the twin cities under

the name

nerdy and i’ve done pretty well for

myself i’ve

been able to play at first ave paisley

park the u.s bank stadium and

across the country in a dramatic amount

of time

something that many of my hip-hop peers

have worked decades

and decades just to get even half of the

opportunities that i’ve been able to

receive something

that makes me just as well like behind

closed doors as it sounds

and some of the reasons for that is

because

yes my music is good and yes my music is

positive

but a clear and repeating factor is that

my music is clean

no cussing now i have said damn

a few times and i did say that fictional

haters could

pucker to my anus which while gross

isn’t technically swearing i told the

radio station who still wouldn’t play

the song

but it’s true 99 of my music is

clean no cussing in fact it’s very

non-violent from content

to tone and it gives me a lot of

opportunities

so when tedx minneapolis asked me to

come here

stand on this spot look super hot which

i feel like i have

i came up with an idea on what to speak

on

clean hip-hop is the future of hip-hop

and by embracing

it not only will you be a better artist

and more successful but you will affect

the world

more for the better i had written stuff

about that but then something happened

may 25th an officer

of the minneapolis police department

murdered a man named george floyd

by kneeling on his neck for eight

minutes and 46 seconds

while two of his fellow officers held

him down and one more made sure that the

terrified onlookers couldn’t

save him that video

was captured on a cell phone put online

and went viral

worldwide and when i saw that video

something inside of me broke

you see no matter how much

i danced or how wide i smiled i was

still

black and no matter how deep i threw

myself into my passion

it was less of a fortune of solitude and

more of the saloon door

that trouble could and would walk

through

at any opportunity my mind raced back

to when i was leaving rosemont marcus

theater

and cops showed with their lights

and they demanded me to show them some

id

i remember pointing to my name tag

because i was too afraid to reach for my

wallet

my mind raced back when my car got a

flat in the blizzard

and a cop car pulled up and i was so

thankful that someone was there

to help me and as i stood up and brushed

the snow from my pants the officers got

out of their cars with their hands on

their guns

and told me to drop the weapon

a literal saving grace that so many

young men like me never got

as we marched to three miles from cup

foods to the third precinct

i didn’t want to dance

or sing i wanted them

to hurt as they fired

gas and rubber bullets at children and

elderly people all gathered i didn’t

want

anything i sought to myself i want each

and every one of those

cross-burning stepping child beating

monsters

to pay for what they did and anyone who

supports them

to pay as well i didn’t want to dance

i didn’t want to sing

may 27th where we were providing

first aid outside of a peaceful protest

of the third precinct i remember

as a young black girl was brought to me

shaking in her own blood

trying not to choke on her teeth because

a police officer had

shot her in the mouth with a non-lethal

round as we put her

in a civilian car because 9-1-1 wasn’t

sending ambulances i

didn’t want to make a 90s cartoon

reference

may 29th after being shot by the police

and fleeing i watched as a nurse tried

to save a young girl’s face and eye

in a filthy basement by cell phone light

because a police officer had shot that

young girl in the face at point-blank

range

for the crime of being outside after

curfew

and i didn’t want to sing a note

and on june 1st

when i was put on the ground hand zip

tied behind my back

so tight that my hands went numb

i watched as an army of police officers

descended

upon a group of young people sitting at

the capitol

singing their songs for a hope

of justice and i learned something there

in my brokenness

to my hip-hop peers who have been

shouting

about these things were broken for a lot

longer than i was

the truth is that while rosemont

minnesota wasn’t a dream

many of my peers who had been ignored by

the powers that be

had been living in war zones for much

longer than a week

and me coming here and asking them to be

more accessible

was akin to me asking them to lay down

their swords

and unwound themselves all at the same

time

you see the songs that escaped their

lips had cuts

and edges and jagged and they would

never

expose their necks to anyone ever

i find myself here burdened

under the realization that while my

talent and my drive undoubtedly

contributed

to my consent to my success

the truth is that one of the

huge contributing factors to me being in

the industry where i

am today being here in this room right

now is because

i was safer

i am buckling under my arrogance

thinking that i could come

here and ask these people these veterans

of systematic dehumanization to change

their songs

instead of asking the world to change

their ears

and i find myself

shattered under the realization that

like martin luther king jr my message

has only been so

fervently accepted

because those of malcolm x and my

hip-hop peers hit too deep

and too radically for people to cope

with

so what’s my big ask they say

when they give a speech you’re supposed

to have a big ass something you want the

audience to do

now that they’ve heard your story and

mine is this

i am asking you to not let

the jagged pieces of a person’s song

keep you from hearing the melody of

their heart

i am begging you to work on being

emotionally

stronger so that you can be publicly

wrong

about your misconceived and preconceived

notions

of people and places and movements that

don’t center around what makes you more

comfortable

don’t let your

sacred spaces of success be only

filled with people who make you feel

good

but allow those spaces

to be filled with people who make you

feel challenged

for not being good enough

and when i said i was sorry earlier

i lied

whew