On Being Surveilled and Detained by the FBI and CIA Talib Kweli

When he was burning the flame, he said this is for the FBI. He was maybe a fiery speaker, and had passionate ideas, but he was a calm, cool, collected person. And so he’s singing about how this is for the FBI , but it’s just words, it’s just song and words.

"A few years ago, I was listening to Stokely Carmichael speeches while I was preparing for a new record I was working on, and it was shortly after 9/11 in America. I was making a reservation on Jet Blue Airlines to fly to California. When I got to the airport, the FBI, the CIA, the TSA; they came and intercepted me, all these guys in black suits, and they took me in a back room and started questioning me about this Stokely Carmichael speech I was listening to.

They probably had some sort of bug or some sort of tap or something. They were very concerned with me listening to this Stokely Carmichael speech from 1967, you know, forty years ago. We have gangsta rappers who talk about shooting other people all the time, killing, but the FBI’s not looking for them; they’re looking at me because I’m listening to this speech from forty years ago. And it shows you the power of those words, that they resonate even to now. The FBI is still scared of this man. He doesn’t have nearly the influence over our community as he did then, but yet they still stopped me at the airport for listening to his speech..."