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Words Matter Pod w/ Akil Pinnock

Words Matter Pod w/ Akil Pinnock

Written by: Akil Pinnock
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About this listen

After years of entertaining the idea of starting an interview based Hip-Hop podcast, but realizing how the saturated the genre was becoming, independent journalist Akil Pinnock decided to pivot. This spawned the Words Matter Pod w/ Akil Pinnock, a podcast dedicated to storytellers. Using his love for long-form interviewing, derived from listening to hours of interview Hip-Hop podcasts like Juan Epstein, Combat Jack, and Rap Radar. Akil Pinnock decided that he would take what he learned from those platforms, and apply it interviewing storytellers of varying fields and not just Hip-Hop.Akil Pinnock Social Sciences
Episodes
  • EP. 42: PT. II | HIP-HOP NOT CARING FOR FLATTERY, THE ERASURE OF THE DJ IN RAP GROUPS, SENDING RECORDS TO SPACE, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLIC RELATIONS & JOURNALISM,
    Jul 1 2025

    We’re back. In the second and final part of episode 42, Mr. Allen and I speak about Hip-Hop being the most honest genre of music, the difference between public relations and journalism, why he made the subject of the project turtablism instead of any of the other three elements of Hip-Hop. He spoke about creating a DJ septet as a Hip-Hop re-imagining of a big band, the erasure of the DJ in rap groups, and sending records to space. Please LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE. Words Matter.

    CHECK OUT HARRY'S HARBANGER COLLOQUIUM!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnbDwvCj4vk&t=5413s

    SUBSCRIBE TO WORDS MATTER NETWORK ONLINE!https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/

    APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/words-matter-pod-w-akil-pinnock/id1617394062

    SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YvGpb3HRumh4B6CDtKAom?si=f4272d0c0c644e1a CHECK US OUT ON SOCIALS!

    Host: https://www.instagram.com/akngozi/ Words Matter Pod: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatterpod/ Words Matter Network: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatternetwork/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AkNgozi TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@wordsmatterpod?lang=en


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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Ep. 42: Pt. I | NAS, CROSSING OVER, ART MUSIC VS. COMMERCE MUSIC & PUBLIC ENEMY W/ THE HARRY "THE MEDIA ASSASSIN" ALLEN
    Jun 24 2025

    We got another two parter y’all! We have Harry Allen, one of three of the 2024-2025 Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellows from the Harvard Hip Hop Archive. Mr. Allen is a longtime Hip-Hop journalist, media personality, educator, and member of the legendary Public Enemy. Today, we’re here to speak about his fellowship project harbanger. In his own words, harbanger is a turntablist septet, and an experimental hip-hop research project created at MIT in 2020 designed to investigate turntable polyphony, polyrhythm, and polysemantics. This may sound like a foreign language to most so we get into that during this interview. In part one of this week’s episode, Mr. Allen explains how harbanger represents an alternate reality of hip-hop being taken seriously when it was formed instead of initially being written off as a silly fad like most things that Black people create. He spoke about the difference between “art music” and “commerce music,” commercialization of Hip-Hop, what “crossing over” means, his relationship with Chuck D and Public Enemy, what being the “Media Assassin” meant, hip-hop being “reasonable,” and so much more. Stay tuned for part two coming next week. Please LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE! Words Matter.

    CHECK OUT HARRY'S HARBANGER COLLOQUIUM!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnbDwvCj4vk&t=5413s

    SUBSCRIBE TO WORDS MATTER NETWORK ONLINE!https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/

    APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/words-matter-pod-w-akil-pinnock/id1617394062

    SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YvGpb3HRumh4B6CDtKAom?si=f4272d0c0c644e1a CHECK US OUT ON SOCIALS!

    Host: https://www.instagram.com/akngozi/ Words Matter Pod: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatterpod/ Words Matter Network: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatternetwork/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AkNgozi TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@wordsmatterpod?lang=en

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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Ep. 41 | The War on Recidivism w/ James Pitt, host of American Felon TV
    Apr 22 2025

    This week’s guest is James Pitt, founder of American Felon TV. American Felon TV is a social media and YouTube platform that documents crimes and landmark events in his life and Rockland County, NY. While I understand many in the comments may interpret the existence of American Felon TV as a platform that’s stuck in the past and glorifies crime, to Pitt, he’s telling these stories as a method to deter youth from a life of crime and incarceration, as well as highlighting and interviewing felons who have turned their life around. Pitt talks about how growing up being poor and the ridicule that comes with that, led to him eventually fighting back which led to a life of crime and violence. We spoke about handling his newfound fame and dealing with online trolls, re-adjusting to the free world, fighting recidivism, the difference between glorification and documentation, what he had to unlearn from prison, and much more. I say this all the time but this was a really great episode and when the American Felon TV Instagram page was brought to my attention, I instantly knew that this was someone that we needed to interview. Relative to the world of crime, these stories aren’t the most unique, but within the context of our hometown of Spring Valley, NY, these are the stories of our community that need to be told. The suburbs experience some of the same hardships that people from the cities experience such as, the school-to-prison pipeline, crime, homelessness, underfunded public school districts, and gentrification. Hopefully this channel and interview can be informative to listeners like you and contribute to everyone understanding each other just a little better so that we can co-exist without judgement. Please LIKE, COMMENT, AND SUBSCRIBE! Words Matter.


    SUBSCRIBE TO WORDS MATTER NETWORK ONLINE!https://www.wordsmatternetwork.com/ APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/words-matter-pod-w-akil-pinnock/id1617394062 SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YvGpb3HRumh4B6CDtKAom?si=f4272d0c0c644e1a CHECK US OUT ON SOCIALS!Host: https://www.instagram.com/akngozi/ Words Matter Pod: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatterpod/ Words Matter Network: https://www.instagram.com/wordsmatternetwork/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AkNgozi TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@wordsmatterpod?lang=en VIDEO EDIT: https://www.instagram.com/jelaniaswad/INSTRUMENTAL: https://www.instagram.com/hegot_flame/

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    1 hr and 22 mins
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