Season 1, Episode 9: The Reverend Lennox Yearwood

Sept. 10, 2020

“Climate change is our lunch counter moment for the 21st Century.”

“Rev” has brought the climate crisis and hip hop music into radical convergence. In the early 2000s, his life took a dramatic turn -- from studying biblical archaeology to founding the Hip Hop Caucus, which organizes and leads the Hip Hop generation in using its political and social voice as the political arm of Hip Hop. Rev is now one of the most influential people in Hip Hop political life. He leads the national Respect My Vote! Campaign; since its inception, numerous celebrity partners have joined the campaign during election cycles including T.I., 2 Chainz, Amber Rose, Future, Keyshia Cole, Vic Mensa, Charlamagne tha God, Keke Palmer, Omar Epps, and more. The campaign set a world record of registering the most voters in one day in 2008 (32,000 people in the US). His People’s Climate Music project released the hip hop album HOME (“Heal Our Mother Earth”) featuring Common, NE-YO, Elle Varner, Karmin, Raheem DeVaughn, and Crystal Waters, among other luminaries. He is the host of the podcast The Coolest Show as part of the Think 100% Climate project using music, radio, film and overall activism to engage young Black people in the climate movement. In 2014, Rev issued A Zero Emissions Manifesto for the Climate Justice Movement, calling for a rapid transition off of fossil fuels; since then he has been arrested multiple times for climate protests as he brings the tools of the civil rights movement to bear on the climate issue.

In this episode, Rev calls people of all colors and faiths to action on climate as a moral imperative on par with the greatest social movements in our history. And we learn about his personal journey from divinity student, to Air Force chaplain opposed to the Iraq war, to crusading climate hip hop, political champion.