legislation that includes billions of dollars for clean energy projects with a focus on disadvantaged communities. the goal is to cut u. s. carbon emissions by half by 2030, and roscoe says she's glad to have been drafted. i feel like i'm a part of something heidi joe castro, al jazeera washington australian comedian barry humphrey is best known for his character dame at the average has died at the age of 89, a household name in prison, australia and the u. s. dame edmund sharp wit and cutting human delighted audiences with decades. he also won a special tony award for his broadway show dame edna the royal toll. ah, hello again. this is al jazeera and these are the headlines you as president joe biden has confirmed that a military operation to evacuate its embassy staff,

and their families from sudan has been completed. a fighting between sued on the army and the country is biggest paramilitary force is now into its 2nd week. more than 400 people have been killed. had been, morgan has more from cotton. while many people who spoke to see here that the fighting on saturday has been the most intense and most fear is 15 since the thought of the classes between the rapid support forces. emerson is army. last saturday. there's been intense artillery strikes and airstrikes in the northern city of battery. that's just across the river now from the central parts of the capitol, the vicinity of the general command of the army that has been the scene of intense clutches between the 2 sides has seemed less fighting on saturday. but other places like the southern and eastern districts of the capital, horton, intense and fierce fighting as well. well, meanwhile, tens of thousands of sudanese have already fled the country and cross the border to neighboring chad. the wild freed program says it's expecting that number to increase significantly thousands of israelis. i'm protesting for 16 straight week

against plans to overhaul the judiciary. prime minister benjamin netanyahu pulls that proposal last month and the bill will now be brought to parliament when peace reconvene. at the end of april. at least 9 people have been killed in an attack on a military count, a nearby houses in central molly, 3 simultaneous explosions hit the city of february on saturday. molly's army says it killed at 28th of the attack during the hundreds of protesters and columbia had rallied against proposed social and economic. congress is debating ross and proposals by left. as president gustavo brazil's president louis janasia luna da silva, has called for a negotiated settlement between steven moscow. he was speaking in portugal at the start of his 1st visit to europe, from taking office in january. well, those were headlines. i'll be back with more news here after upfront. do stay with

us. i will just re weigh as low time viewers of upfront, we'll know maybe has been is a journalist who likes to win argument this week. we welcome back to the show, the discuss his new book when every argument where he shares the tips and tricks of how he's home disobedience guild, over the years. the 1st, what's of today's contemporary music and pop culture in the united states? it can be traced back to black and indigenous position. however, their contributions have long gone unrecognized, and their songs have often been commodified for a majority white audience. so how are you this today working to undo that historically ratio and how do they continue to celebrate black performance and artistry? earlier i spoke to jake lot and award winning musician and scholar,

specializing in the early folk music of black americans and parking anthony new, distinguished professor of african and african american studies. a duke university and the author of several books, including lack of feminine crisis and challenge of the musical archive this week upfront. the jag mark, thank you so much for joining me on. upfront. jake are always that with you. you describe yourself as a performer of traditional black music and a specialist in the early folk music of black americans. you often talk about the profound waves, the black people have shaped and even defied roots music and american itself. but many people, the contributions of black folk and indigenous folk seems, seems to be lost to history. can you talk about why it's so important for you to highlight the impact of this sort of appropriation and cultural white washing? i think for me the, the main reason is because it's all still ongoing. i think it's really easy to go listen to stories about the early record industry about the way that early country

music took shape. here the ways that black people into digital people were kind of boxed out of the early commercial opportunities that were available in that and lose sight of the fact that the same logic informs how many of the larger labels today, many of the, publishes today are choosing the artist that they work with, right, we're still having trouble finding space for black people for indigenous people for women to get the radio play to get the industry access that particular lead, straight white men are able to have in country and american and related industries . absolutely. mark in your work, you also talk about the eraser of black people's cultural contributions in the united states. and it's not just folk music where we see this stuff happening. can you walk us through a little bit how other black john was other forms of black music got commodified even as its origins were sort of wilfully forgotten. the best example, this, of course, is for rock'n'roll music. we forget about some of the early influences,

like folks like the system. rosetta thorpe, who was attentively a gospel singer, but she played a good car. right, right. it played and jazz clubs. we forget about even someone like ike turner who created a really, you know, influential song call rocket, 69. which is, you know, foundational to the sound of what we call rock and roll. and the practices at window one in the 1950s. it just was every day that a black artist would do what we would call a rhythm and blues song and that period of time that would get covered by white artists and be promoted as something absolutely different. the most famous case of that, of course is how dog read everybody. they know an elvis presley song. they know how dog, like most folks don't know the big mama thornton recording the 2 years before elvis presley. and even as he became the king of rock and roll. somewhat like big moment, gordon was a race from history. pat boons. oh,

both whole musical career listened in 19 fifties was predicated on covering little richard songs. and would you listen to the richard sing, tutti fruity, which has a certain kind of resonance that we all recognize. you know, you've been raised in the black church and black blue spaces and rhythm and blues and what have you. and then you listen to pat boone, st to the freudian is i get a, what is this? right, you know, here here, a little bit of room whitewashing. yeah. black music, what you hear, pat boone saying to the free mark, a lot of times people talk about black music as the struggle they talk about black music is the music of pain and suffering and struggle. and it absolutely is. we had to make a way at no way. right. but it's also about joy at. can you talk a little bit about sort of how this tradition is not just a tradition of pain and suffering. it is something like, like loose music, right. and, and for the average person here, blues losing, that's a bunch of mournful, sorry, full, sad black people singing about stuff and, and shout out to angela davis. we got, this is

a part of which he talked about who wrote blues legacies. when you go to these black women losing her to the 1920s, they're talking about everything in an offering, social justice commentary. but they're also talk about sexual desire. both, you know, heterosexual sexual desire and same sex sexual desire in many of the songs that they're singing. and, and it's so much more than that, right? it is black music, specifically, right? is an exploration of the black, social, cultural, and spiritual condition. it's like, you know, barracka says, you know, the late leroy jones, a late america says and, and blues people like that. great, like the spirit do not descend without music. and that very much captures with black music is. and again, there's a moment where black music is seen as entertainment and commodity. and that's important because, but you know, musicians need to be able to make a living, right. but it's more than that, right? it is more than just entertainment, right? it is a lot the life force of black people being expressed in the musical context cigna

in, in your work. you've talked about um, through how in moments of despair, even in your own despair about ants, have like violence against state bounds. all these things you've had to turn to the music of our ancestors. artificial like music remains away. you say of how they survived for so what is traditional black music mean to you? i just use the term traditional black music because it's expansive. ahem. when we talk about traditional music, oftentimes in a folk music context, it comes very specifically with like, i play fiddle tunes or icing see shanties that kind of thing. right? and when i say traditional black folk music, i think oftentimes people who are in the know will go to the banjo or people think blues guitar. and i love those things and i do those things. but i also think that any real definition of traditional black folk, folk music would have to include hip hop it would have to include punk, it would have to include disco here. many other things that i think fall under that term by putting the bad brains in when they, when it, they got about,

about traditional music. exactly. but what i'm thinking about that if i'm talking about folk music community music, traditional music that emerged out of us wanting to do something together rather than us wanting to sell something. and i think that that creates a very different type of artistic product in the end. when i was growing up, we were playing banjos in high school, you know, and limitless respect for the cultural role of the banjo and that music can play it . and i love it, but you know, that's not what was going on around me. right. people weren't dancing to that. san jose weren't hot industry. exactly. you've talked about the depiction of black people, particularly the music industry, and also this legacy of minstrel seeing the minstrel show when you look at the re packaging of black identity and black performance in bits and pieces for white profit, white entertainment. how do you think the missiles playing out in the current moment, the current era, you know, the way we talk about minstrels is, is, is,

is complicated, rightly has, you know, one him we, we need to make a distinction between minstrels and blackface mental see, right. these folks who literally blackened up um as white folks to look black and perform some variation of what they thought was blackness. but then when you get to that error, folks like george walker and, and, and bert williams and ernest, he hogan wright who, who understand the limits of what they can do as musicians and song writers. and so earnest, he organ might write a song like and this is a truth, right? he wrote a song call all look alike to me, the black man writing a song and 18 ninety's and you know, called all look alike to me that was primarily consumed by white audiences, right? sheet music, right? playing the song in their homes on their pianos, etc. et cetera, he understood what the market was at the time and, and the hunger appetite, if you will, you know, for white folks took for what they deemed as authentic blackness, right?

whether it was or not. right? and, and this is part of the game that we seen in 1090 with gangster rap. um, i have no doubt in my mind when we think about the primary figures of what gets identified as gangster rap. understood to day we're packaging something for white, mainstream consumption. right. that didn't necessarily reflect who they were when we know they were, it didn't reflect who they were. right. osha jackson came from a 2 parent household. right. snoop don't came from a duper, but like all the kind of stereotypes in mythologies about black pathology. right? that was embedded in gangster rap in an i t ninety's. you know, they understood they were delivering this to white consumers were profit, it doesn't mean there wasn't some truth in that. the critique to police vitality were very much real in the context of that. but it's complicated, right? it's never going to be one thing, right? you're giving something to the market in order to make a living that the white consumers will consume. and at the same time, you're hoping that black audience is here, the lower frequencies of what you're delivering for something that's more liberatory and staining and spiritual in that context. i guess the co sign over

there. yeah, no i'm, i'm really excited that that when where it did. yeah. we're thinking about the power of, of, of our work as black folk and the power of cultural production to create change. whether it's the critiques are pretty police brutality or, or the violence of black on black crime, whatever the thing might be. i'm also thinking about reparation. yeah. your 1st record is called not for within the reparation. when we think about the future of black music making, how do you think we can apply reparations, right? and for those out them to about compensation for the unpaid labor and systemic exploitation that black people have been forced to render since the beginning of slavery. but how do we think about it in the context of the music industry? so i talk about this a lot whenever we wind up having the conversation about cultural appropriation, which is this huge hot term right now that i think a lot of people here,

but maybe don't understand the concept behind it. one of the things that i typically point to when we're talking about black music is how, whether it's rock and roll or minstrel see, or hip hop, or disco, or jazz, whatever. all of america's major musical exports have come out of the black community, right? our music industry is built on the contributions of black people. look at the financial breakdown of where that money is going after it's being made. right. black people are producing the content, right? we're doing the intellectual and the spiritual and artistic labor to create the genres. and somebody else is making all the money, and that to me is a problem. and i think reparations is a big systemic conversation that needs to happen. and i'm well aware of that. many people who don't want that watered down by talking about it in anything less than a context of government payouts for that i probably would lean on that. well, actually then that's what i, i think on an individual level,

there is absolutely more that artist can do. and you know, i'm, i'm fortunate to work with a know, a lot of white musicians who go out of their way because they understand that they owe a debt. and i think it would be nice in those moments where things get out of hand for us. right. i think a lot of people thought about this during the george floyd uprisings a few years ago. you know, where are all of the rich white people who are in the entertainment industry, who have these massive followings, who have huge platforms, who has billed to their careers in themselves based on our work and then are not showing up. when we need to the board and certainly i think when you're talking about reparations. yeah, there needs to be a check. there needs to be money, right. someone has done labor and there needs to be compensation for the labor. i also think as a performer, one of the most meaningful things available to me is not just my own personal resources because i know of, for a lot of performers, even on

a high level. oftentimes those aren't as high as they appear to people on the outside, right. and all those people have a lot of people working for them. but i also think they have the power to motivate a huge group of people who also adapt because they enjoy all of the music and it would be great to see more buy in. absolutely, from you know, those a list celebrities built in empire with, with our bricks. indeed. jake mark, i want to thank you so much for joining me on upfront. well, thank you, mark the if you are a long time viewer of up front, then you are probably used to seeing my next guest argue his way. there are some pretty tough interviews in this very studio. maddie has been, is a man who knows how to win an argument. he was the 1st host of upfront and had to head here on al jazeera english. and he's now the host of the man who has been showing him as in b. c. and on peak are here in the united states. he's also an author. he has

a new book. it's called when every argument, the art of debating, persuading and public speaking. and it is full of tips and tricks on how to win an argument, whether it's at home in a debating chamber or on t v had the good to see you to see much so lovely to be here. how does i have a fuel to come back with? should i go sit there and you come say we're let me know yelling, but will argue intensely intensely, those get to be a thanks so much fun. now it's great also to talk about this book. i've read it and closely, and i was persuaded in some ways, why do you write it now? i wrote it now. well, the sure answer is there was a pandemic. so i started writing. the long answer is politically, i do believe we're in a moment where are public spaces, both in the u. s. and around the world? i've just come back from the u. k. have been taken over by gaslight, as people pushing nonsense b. s false information, a con man griffith z. and i believe that we need to retake our public square. we

need to retake discourse. democracy cannot survive and we can't have good faith disagreement. and unfortunately we have too many bad faith disagreements today. so i looked around, i saw what was going on, i said, look, i want to help people, i want to equip people with the rhetorical skills i need to push back against this nonsense. so i found all the tips persuasive. i was convinced but all of these will work. the thing that kept ringing in my mind is, are we giving into the drifters by arguing on their level wallowing in the mud with them? should we try to attain a higher level? yes or no? so in an ideal world, of course, we should be attaining higher level. i have my own rules and i say, you know what, i have a hygiene test. i will have an election dinner on the shirt means i can't interview a lot of republican politicians who i might want to interview. but i don't want to give a platform to people who say, joe, vice president, i don't want to give a platform to climate change denies holocaust denies. just i'll argue with anyone people you know, mean i love arguing, but have to draw a line somewhere. i would argue, reality, i'm not gonna argue up is down. hottest coal black is. why not argue with conspiracy? there's, you're right. i will wallow in the mud with people with others. yes. but that's

kind of that's, that's kind of big. the big abstract point. the specific point is you can't avoid some of these people more. we live in a well. now where, you know, there was a time when a lot people say to me, well, you know, you do what you do. i'm going to keep my head done. none of us can keep our heads down anymore if you are in the united states, for example, as we are right now, democracy is existentially threatened. one of the 2 major political parties has been taken over by near fascists, cultivates conspiracy theorists. authoritarians this in our in which you can say, well, you know, i'm just going to my, my business. that's for them. this is for me know, the arguments coming to you whether you want to or not. what i find frustrating is i see liberals left is progressive, small di democrats, who may have the facts and the figures. we've got the truth, but they can't persuade other people. they don't know how to convey it to others, no point having all the knowledge and all the facts and all the wisdom if you can't get across to the people who need it. so i'm saying, great, have you a wonderful facts, have your highbrow conversations. but at some point, yeah,

you're going to have to push back against the people i called dish gallup is in the book that people just want to knock you down with misinformation. you're going to have to push back. one of the things you talk about is knowing the audience, how important is to recognize who you're talking to. what does that mean in practical terms in terms of engage media conversations on controversial? so i'm essentially, we're sitting here on our does her english, a global audience is watching us. when i do my show every week it's mainly an american audience watching me. so as a journalist, you tailor your message to who's in front of you, and i would argue not just as a journalist, as any person in a public forum or even a private form. if you're around the dinner table with your mag loving uncle at thanksgiving, you are going to take a different approach to convincing that mag loving uncle as you are with maybe an auditorium full of students at your university or college or in a boardroom at work. and not say me to face, i'm saying say the same that you want to say make the same argument, have the same beliefs and principles, but taylor them to who is in front of you know, who your audience. so for example,

if i'm dealing with an american audience, and i'm talking about afghanistan, right, i'm going to talk to the american, i want to make the case that the afghan war was wrong. and joe biden was right to pull out, which i did on my show nath. i'm going to make the case along the lines of this cost, the american public a great deal of blood and treasure. that doesn't mean i also don't believe it cost afghans a lot of lives. it destroyed afghanistan. it was a geopolitical nightmare. that was all great. but what's the number one argument i'm gonna make to my view as this didn't help you. right? because they're the people that are scares me just a little worried because part of the challenge of this is when people tell other message to audiences in the kinds of you're describing this neo fascist moment, this authoritarian moment is that they're playing to people's fears. also to their biases. and so if we live in a world where afghan lives disposable already, and we only focus on the budget that are only so or we prioritize it, but it's also about it prioritize. it's about, you need to get your message across to people, you need to convince a skeptical person you need to get through the door. and what i'm suggesting in the

book is here are some trips can technically get you through the door. once you're through the door, yes, bring up everything else, bring up the cost afghan lives, bring up the geopolitical problems. but how do you get through the door? we live in a world where the door is shut far too often these days were very, very polar. people don't want to hear a liberal if they're conservative. they don't wanna hear cuz out of their liberal. and also i would just say, you know, you say play to people's as if that's the world we live in law. this is a very practical book. it's noted for, it's not written for kind of ancient greece, utopian debate, chambers is written for the real world. and i say in the real world, people are biased. people are afraid, people do feel their way towards the conclusion that are rationally think their way to you. that's who i'm dealing with. well, that's how i have to adapt. so is last thing i ask you on this, isn't that the same argument the trunk could make? okay. i think immigration really bad. i think we do need better border security, so i'll tell them they're taking your jobs or they're sitting criminal rape across the board because that's what their fears are. that's what their biases are. and so therefore i can appeal to my audience. you know, in my, my fear about that is that it reinforces my question to you that mom is what do you

do in response? because trans doing that. anyways. he's doing it masterfully as much as we might laugh at his lack of eloquence and his ignorance, etc. he does know how to press the right buttons. he doesn't know how to rouse a crowd. he does not to get people to the police station. he does it in the darkest way possible. he appeals to our worst emotions, fear, loathing, paranoia prejudice. i'm not saying appealed to the same emotions. i'm just saying appealed to emotion. but you know, for example, if you're a liberal or a left, if you can inspire people with hope solidarity with a common vision of a shed future. yeah. but inspire people. how do you do that and still hold on if you even want to, to these sort of traditional journalistic principles of objectivity distance in the book? very clear. paypals is a way to go. yes. appealing to the emotions as you're saying. now, how do you do that? but also what are the some sense of journalistic objectivity? so the 2nd chapter is about appealing to emotion and pathos as aristotle. but at the 3rd chapter is on logos. if i'm facts, i'm not saying dropped the facts. i'm not kelly uncommon. alternative. i'm saying

facts matter, feelings about feelings tend to matter more than fact. so go ahead with feelings, but make sure facts follow your way through. you know, anyone who knows because what's the show? nose. i love my fax. i love my receipts i the chapters go show you will receive one of my favorite when i come and say, you know what? i'm the guy who says to, you know, whoever it is, you said this in 2009. how can be said that? i've got, i've got the transcript right here. that's why i'm known for i. so i'm not saying drunk fax. i'm say we need all that. but you know, you mentioned the objectivity. it's a word i struggle with these days because i think journalists have hidden behind this abstract idea of objectivity to avoid having to take some important moral position like what the, what the classic example were in the u. s. for several years while tom was present, journalist would not say the word lie, they would not say the word racist because they were taught in j school. you don't say stuff like that. you don't question watson. someone hot, you play both sides. and i say no, it took a long time for people to realize we live in an authoritarian moment. you have to be able to cool ally, ally, and new at times as use racially tinted race, divisive,

let's say range. what letters? so now slowly, some journalist realize that you need to be able to call things out for what they are. truth is more important and objectivity, factual reality is more important and defining objectivity. so midpoint between the 2 parties. one of the 2 parties is now an authoritarian, anti democratic movement, so you don't really want to be in a midpoint. and by the way, we, as journalists, mark, we have a bias. we have a bus to the truth. we have a bus to reality. we have a bus to democracy, we can't function as a free press for the state. if democracy doesn't exist, the people that i'm an unbiased journalist, no, you should have some biases. they're important that absolutely acknowledging what they are acknowledging with absolute how much of this is a u. s. thing you talk about sort of being in the u. s. u k, at different moments. how much of this is particular to the rise of trump and whatever is going on here? i think it's very globe, but when i talk about trumps america, most of the game is israel are the ones turkey moody's india or band hungry putin's russia. you know,

the u. k. on the birth stones and visual when he was and his dad party is still doing some i read just things. but also when i sat in that c and i interviewed ministers from around the world listening, i noticed in 20172018. every time i would interview administer from an african government and asian government, they sounded like trump. they did the say they had the same verbal text. they were using the same tactics, the same fake news, the same trying to overwhelm you with a bunch of nonsense. it wasn't just trump and trump, and people that i was in to be. it was people around the world who was saying cynically, that works well that goes through america about work. so this is a global problem, certainly for global media. you've had a lot of people to account in this very studio. and your booking give lots of examples from upfront out 0. what is your favorite memory of a debate? you had one of my favorite movies i tell you in the book was standing right behind you with that monitor. talking to a man named steve rodgers, not captain america. sadly, but a trump advisor in 2018. and it was, he was doing the gish gala. what i said about he was trying to just throw lots of

nonsense and use up the time and make you move on. and what i say in the book is you need to do 3 things to start that you need to pick your bottle. you need to not budge, need to call it out because i didn't he, he wanted to avoid the discussion with a trumpet, lied about 16 steel mills and i, i kept just sticking to that, picked my bottle. i didn't budge as a don't talk to me about 60 mills and he wanted to move on at one point. he said, just move on as a note. and i called and i said you want me to move on because you know it's a lie. i'm never going to say ok, well where the fix still bills. that was me saying everyone's got their own way of trying to take these people on is very hard to take these people or he is a possible way that you can do. and i say to my fellow journalists here is a one way you can do it and we're getting to 2024. all these gish gallup is going to be back on our line enough. the line up here is one way of trying to stop them dead in the middle. you are a gish gallup or stop, or if you get a t shirt, which is amazing book, everybody takes it out, maddie feel good for you. well, yeah, it's been a pleasure my interview of the book, todd,

i mean we have everybody that you watch that is our show upfront. we'll be back to the ah and the climate has changed every year for millions or year decades of talk. but little action is all about distract, create confusion to crate, smoke and mirrors. the shocking truth about how the climate debate has been systematically supported. the oral industry was a main bank roller or opposition to clock back to campaign against the climate. do

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one or 2 global perspective. mm. mm. oh, as the fighting between sir don's all me and the power military force and just a 2nd week, the u. s. evacuated embassy stuff. a while constant bombardment shops, many hospitals across the country. we visit one of the few, still functioning. ah, hello there, i'm associates a.