Lance McWhorter: Rhythm, Fire & Redemption

Thank you, Chef, thank you, that was awesome.

And thank you, that was a lot of fun. I was hoping to get the only segue that I missed out, and I was talking about the song that changed my life, but we didn’t get any music in that level. But you’re in Minneapolis now, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah, so Minneapolis is one of my favorite hip hop scenes, Slug and Brother Ali and Proff, and so Brother Ali, Uncle Sam, Goddamn is the song that changed my life as a white man.

So talk to me, talk to me about Brother Ali’s song. Talk to me about it.

Yeah, man. Have you got into him much? Oh, yeah.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. No, Uncle Sam, god damn.

I mean, like when that whole track is just, and I play it for everybody, like, it’s just one of those, you want to know where my head’s at? That’s where my head’s at. You know, it’s like, you know, I was raised not good.

You know, I was raised by, I mean, I was raised by loving good people. My grandmother wasn’t a very sweet, loving person, but she was racist as shit. I mean, think about it.

She was born in, you know, the 19 teens or 1920 or whatever, Jim Crow South. Like, I offer no excuse to being molded into your environment. But I mean, even Bruce Lee said, you know, it’s like, you’re like water, man.

You get poured into the glass.

It’s right. Right.

You’re there. You know, it’s like, but I mean, me going to the military at age 17 and being thrust into these, you know, multi-racial units and peer groups and things like that, it changed everything, you know, and it’s just a big part of this, the new project that I’m working on now is called The Sins of Our Grandmothers. And it’s really kind of deep diving into that, you know, having, you know, it’s not about mom because we didn’t listen to mom.

Like we didn’t listen to dad. Like, but grandma, we listened to grandma. Like that was, and I know she wasn’t trying to do it out of spite.

And like in Seeds, I haven’t kind of touched on that, that innocent racism, you know, that. And I know from, from a black man’s point of view,“, that may be just like an idiotic statement, you know, but from a white dude, white southern dude’s point of view, it’s like, man, this shit was, we were born into it, but we’re trying to change that.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of the Taste Music Hear Food Podcast Show. I am your host, Ed Porter, and this is the destination for food, music and culture and how they all connect. Today we have an amazing guest.

A true patriot. Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash. This, this guy here is definitely a living testament to follow your heart and dreams, period.

So I’m going to attempt to pay this gentleman the flowers he so greatly deserves with this intro. So here we go. Today’s guest has lived nine lives before most people even think of a second act.

He’s been a soldier, a firefighter, a bodyguard, a musician, and now one of the boldest culinary voices in East Texas. From the battlefield to the back of the kitchen, from washing dishes at 13 to earning a Wine Spectator Award, this man has turned grit into gastronomy. As his restaurant Heritage East and speakeasy, The Plaid Rabbit[…]”