Part Three: Once Upon an Economy

(mouse clicking) (soft music) Headspace Studios. (soft music) My name is George the Poet. When I was 17, 18, there was a musical revolution across my community, and this was called "Funky House". (bumping music) So it was an adaptation of house music, but it was interesting that funky house took off among young Londoners at the time because we were used to grime, rap, and dancehall Jamaican music. And in all of those forms, it's like an energy shot. But funky house was a different style altogether. It, first of all, was a slow burner. It would take a long time for the main melody to kick in. It didn't give you a chorus. It didn't give you a single lyric for the first three minutes of the song. Secondly, it was really long. We were learning seven minute songs, us young Londoners. I had only ever seen us as having a very short attention span. And that really just moved me profoundly because I still loved it. We all loved it. That taught me that people can listen differently. I'm saying, all right, if we can listen to longer songs, I wonder if we can listen to more elaborate ideas. Like what if I could tell more detailed stories? And my writing became more and more like that. Everyone knew me. In rap circles, they knew me as a storytelling rapper. And I just invited my audience to trust that. I invited them to not be impatient 'cause that's what funky house taught me. Whatever I can say, just like funky did, these are my terms. In embarking on my podcasting journey I sought to do what funky house did for us as teenagers. I sought to give the listener an opportunity to enter a new world. I talk about the relationship between crime and music in street culture. I talk about the migrant crisis of 2015 and how it spoke to a wider context. I talk about Ugandan politics. I talk about the Grenfell tragedy. World events that will allow me to indicate to a young person how they might wanna respond to society and contribute. That might not be for everyone, and maybe, yeah, I'm not getting many views and many listens in the first year. But in the second year we like won every single award. The listeners proved me right. (bumping music) If you're not familiar with this voice, meet George the Poet, spoken word artist, social commentator, and the Peabody Award-winning creator of "Have You Heard George's Podcast?" This story about being inspired by funky house carries so many of the Long Time ideas, taking your time and not rushing, seeing the bigger picture, highlighting and exploring the structures that shape our lives, and finding new stories for them. But there's another reason George is with us today. He's just begun a PhD in economics. In which I look at the role of black music in creating value across black life worldwide. The...