Speaker 1: Mourning. Everybody is j n V.
Speaker 2: Charlamagne the God. We are to Breakfast Club. We got
Speaker 2: some special guests joining.
Speaker 1: Us this morning.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, we got Ryan Coogler and Peter Nicks.
Speaker 3: Welcome fellas, Thanks for having feeling feeling good, feeling good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, happy, Happy to be invite new documentary anthem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I've long felt like the national anthem, like
Speaker 1: most things in America, need to be changed to represent
Speaker 1: the world we currently live in. Clearly y'all felt the same,
Speaker 1: which is which is why the doc.
Speaker 3: Was created, right absolutely, I mean, I think we're in
Speaker 3: a time right now where we're examining our identity, you know,
Speaker 3: searching for our identity, trying to express it in different ways,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of collisions in how we express
Speaker 3: those identities, and that the moment felt right to to
Speaker 3: inquire and to go a little bit deeper on you know,
Speaker 3: the history of that song and also the opportunity to
Speaker 3: imagine what an anthem would be like for today that
Speaker 3: reflects the American story.
Speaker 2: What made you dive deep into the anthem? Right Because
Speaker 2: we're in school, you learn it, you don't really think
Speaker 2: much of it. This was very knowledgeable because it's where
Speaker 2: the origin came from. When you're a student, they don't
Speaker 2: teach you origin. They just say sing it, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? So what made y'all dive deep into
Speaker 2: actually understanding learning and to even discuss this.
Speaker 3: I've been looking at a couple of projects that we're
Speaker 3: examining this collision between patriotism and protests, and obviously we're
Speaker 3: seeing it in the headlines every day. I've always wanted
Speaker 3: to make a music talk number one, and the Anthem
Speaker 3: seemed like a perfect stage to examine the American voice
Speaker 3: in the American the American story, and also this notion
Speaker 3: that music does bring us together and that maybe a
Speaker 3: project using music as an exploration of the American story
Speaker 3: could in some way reflect some idea of optimism in
Speaker 3: this difficult time that we're in right now.
Speaker 1: I'm learning that, you know. I guess stand up comedy
Speaker 1: is such an inspiration for creative minds like yourself, because
Speaker 1: Anthem seems to be rooted in a bit from Roy
Speaker 1: Woods Junior. And then y'all walked in and y'all said,
Speaker 1: y'all was out last night watching Chappelle and Chris Rock,
Speaker 1: So what is it about comedy that that sparks those seeds.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think personally, I think like stand up.
Speaker 5: Is probably like the highest form of storytelling with like
Speaker 5: a high degree of difficulty, as you know, but it's
Speaker 5: also a forum where you can, you know, where you
Speaker 5: can ask you can ask questions and that and Roy
Speaker 5: is brilliant man, he was, he was he hosted our
Speaker 5: uh our after party. But that bit is that bit
Speaker 5: is kind of incredible, like like for some reason in
Speaker 5: that setting they can ask questions and kind of make,
Speaker 5: you know, kind of make criticisms playing, you know, And
Speaker 5: he was and he was asking you if if you
Speaker 5: know what you know it's based off it's based off
Speaker 5: of this you know, it's not even it's not even
Speaker 5: an American tune, not even American songs based off a
Speaker 5: British drinking So I didn't know that the film.
Speaker 2: That's said, it's so knowledge that we learned so much
Speaker 2: about the film. Yeah, and what made what made you
Speaker 2: be a part of this film?
Speaker 1: You don't is the stand upoint for us?
Speaker 5: We Yeah, I think I think standard like when you laugh,
Speaker 5: when you have a natural reaction, times just nervous, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Sometimes like man I can't believe this person just said this.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a lot of that last night.
Speaker 5: But but but but at the same time, like like oftentimes,
Speaker 5: it's like a it's like a recognition of something, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, and someone storytelling and that and
Speaker 5: that and that bit is just it just leads, you know,
Speaker 5: if you watch the film, and leads right into you know,
Speaker 5: right into it, right into the story. How I got involved.
Speaker 5: Pete and I met uh in Oakland over ten years ago.
Speaker 5: I was making a film called Fruville. It was Fruitville
Speaker 5: then now it was Fruvilleland.
Speaker 1: Bro It all comes.
Speaker 5: Back though, shape I mean, I mean, pe got three
Speaker 5: movies about the actually four now about this about the Bay.
Speaker 5: He got a Steph Curry doc coming out next next month, the.
Speaker 1: Second greatest player of all time. But we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that later.
Speaker 3: Second we could talk.
Speaker 5: We could talk all that, man, I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: that's that's that's yeah, that's that's a nice ranking for him.
Speaker 5: But but but we met. We met then he was
Speaker 5: making a dog called The Waiting Room, which is about
Speaker 5: Highland Hospital, which is which is a you know, a
Speaker 5: massive hospital in East Oakland that has a Trauma Award
Speaker 5: you know. And it was actually the hospital where where
Speaker 5: Oscar Grant rest in peace, where he where he was born,
Speaker 5: in the hospital where where he passed away when he
Speaker 5: was murdered, and and we were trying to get access
Speaker 5: to that place, and so folks in San Francisco Film Society.
Speaker 5: It hooked me and Pete, Me and Pete up and
Speaker 5: we've been tight since. And in some years back, my
Speaker 5: wife is jamesey Evans and my partner called Hanyon, we
Speaker 5: started a company called Proximity Media and a few years
Speaker 5: after we started, we recruited Pete to come over and
Speaker 5: run non fiction for us. So, so he's been making
Speaker 5: films you know, you know, for for our company for
Speaker 5: some time now, and this is the first one that
Speaker 5: we've done in collaboration with Onyx.
Speaker 2: So I always like to ask people from the beginning,
Speaker 2: both of you, guys, Peter and Ryan, like, how did
Speaker 2: you get into film? For somebody out there right now listening,
Speaker 2: how was the start, what was the love, what was
Speaker 2: the first light bulb that said this is what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do? And how was that journey of getting
Speaker 2: into the game.
Speaker 3: I was like, I come from a big family. My
Speaker 3: mom is one of ten. Dad's one of eight, and
Speaker 3: we see big family reunions, lots of cousins running around.
Speaker 3: My uncle Ray had a video camera and he'd bring
Speaker 3: to the family reunions every summer, and I would take
Speaker 3: the camera and run around interview all my family members.
Speaker 3: I had a like kind of like you guys didn't
Speaker 3: have the King's Chairs, but the Pete Nick show. This
Speaker 3: little show and a clip from that is actually an
Speaker 3: autobiographical My first film was an autobiographical documentary about the
Speaker 3: impact that my addiction. I went to Howard University and
Speaker 3: fell into addiction. Sorry, and and my my film at
Speaker 3: the Howard Mecca.
Speaker 2: He went to the Howard.
Speaker 1: That's what I said, the Howard. I want to have this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: He got empathy. Get you.
Speaker 1: You went to Howard.
Speaker 3: Now I was with you on that. I was ready
Speaker 3: to go down the road.
Speaker 4: With you on that.
Speaker 3: But you know it was really you know my story.
Speaker 3: It's a story of a black family, middle class, upper
Speaker 3: middle class black family that dealt with things that were
Speaker 3: difficult to talk about. And I just from the very
Speaker 3: early age, was inspired by my own family story and
Speaker 3: felt that there was something there that I wasn't seeing
Speaker 3: heard and told and that really began began my journey
Speaker 3: as a storyteller. Later when I when I went to
Speaker 3: film school and had a choice to make my first film,
Speaker 3: it was to Look Within.
Speaker 1: I know that you probably should go watch the autobiographical
Speaker 1: DOCU did, But what was the addiction?
Speaker 3: Uh you name it? Like, depends on the day, depends
Speaker 3: my mood.
Speaker 1: Just got turned out in college to stay up.
Speaker 3: I was working at it was the late eighties, during
Speaker 3: the War on drugs. This is when we're rayfel Edmund
Speaker 3: Marion Barry. I was working at a club, the Fifth Column,
Speaker 3: and just got got sucked in the world. I was,
Speaker 3: you know, dealing with a lot of identity issues. And
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it's so interesting that I met
Speaker 3: Ryan eventually and his his process of storytelling looking at
Speaker 3: you know, the black story, the black family, the Black
Speaker 3: American story, and reframing that and in a powerful way
Speaker 3: is a bit of a kismet.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting because there's always a profile of what
Speaker 1: an attic looks like, you know, and somebody who was
Speaker 1: attending an HBCU probably wouldn't fit that profile, so to speak.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, one of the things I learned being
Speaker 3: at Howard was that being black being so many different things.
Speaker 3: It sort of like exploded my mind, you know, on that.
Speaker 3: And and we we we uh have these conceptions that
Speaker 3: that black in the media is you know, more flattened
Speaker 3: out into a two dimensional narrative. And so that that
Speaker 3: was also one of the things I wanted to bring
Speaker 3: into my storytelling.
Speaker 2: And you ryan, for people that don't know, how did
Speaker 2: I get into filmmak, how you got into filmmaking? What
Speaker 2: was the first light, boll What made you say this
Speaker 2: is what I want to do as a profession.
Speaker 4: That's a great question for me.
Speaker 5: I grew up in the I'm gonna say, I grew
Speaker 5: up in the Bay Area, playing football and going to school.
Speaker 5: I liked school. I liked football maybe a little bit more.
Speaker 5: Got a scholarship to go to a school called Saint
Speaker 5: Mary's College. And and this was in two thousand, two
Speaker 5: thousand and three. Very good basketball school, you know, but
Speaker 5: they had they had some some you know, they had
Speaker 5: football football.
Speaker 4: There as well, playing in D one Double A.
Speaker 5: And after my freshman season, they dropped their football program.
Speaker 5: And that same semester was like we were doing spring ball,
Speaker 5: and they dropped.
Speaker 4: That bomb on us.
Speaker 5: And and I was in an English class, like a
Speaker 5: creative writing class, talk about woman named Rosemary Graham, and
Speaker 5: she gave the first assignment for us to write about
Speaker 5: our most intense emotional experience. And I wrote about something
Speaker 5: that happened like a health issue that happened on my pop.
Speaker 5: Didn't think much about it, you know, turned it in
Speaker 5: and then she called me into her office hours and
Speaker 5: had like I went on one with me and was like, hey,
Speaker 5: you should think about writing screenplays, you know. And that
Speaker 5: was really like the first that was really like the
Speaker 5: first time and an adult recommended something like that. I
Speaker 5: thought it was a crazy recommendation.
Speaker 2: You've never been into it.
Speaker 5: You was just like, let me, I mean, look, looking back,
Speaker 5: I always it was always there, Like my family watched
Speaker 5: a lot of movies. That was how we would pastime.
Speaker 5: It was how we would communicate with each other, you know.
Speaker 5: And I've done a lot of self and now it's
Speaker 5: just since then, like a lot you know, like like
Speaker 5: a little bit of like what Peace talking about looking back,
Speaker 5: my parents came up from Auckland and they was and
Speaker 5: they was there when you know that time. Peace talking
Speaker 5: about how my parents was in the town and it
Speaker 5: wasn't much different. They were trying to They were trying
Speaker 5: to stay alive, man, you.
Speaker 4: Know, young young mary uh.
Speaker 5: And they would what they would do for entertainment is like,
Speaker 5: you know, go to Blockbuster and rent something and stay
Speaker 5: in the house. Had three sons that would keep us
Speaker 5: in the house. So that's what we would do, is
Speaker 5: I was. That was our culture, you know. And I
Speaker 5: always loved, always loved movies. You know, I would do
Speaker 5: like theater arts or whatever. If it was an elective,
Speaker 5: I'll take theater arts, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 5: it was always there. But her reading something that I
Speaker 5: wrote and making that making that suggestion was huge, man.
Speaker 5: And and then my wife. It was my girl at
Speaker 5: the time, you know, I told her about it. I
Speaker 5: was trying to write screenplays and Microsoft Word which is difficult,
Speaker 5: if y'all you'll ever tried to write a screenplay before
Speaker 5: because of the margins.
Speaker 4: And everything goof. Yeah. And then my my my.
Speaker 5: Wife, she she was on track scholarship at Present State.
Speaker 4: We bought to hand no money.
Speaker 5: She she squeezed our coins together and got me the
Speaker 5: software that you used, you know, to professionally write a screenplay,
Speaker 5: Final Drive. So once once she did that. You know,
Speaker 5: I was in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, you remember the first screenplay you wrote I Do Broke?
Speaker 4: I mean I remember all of them. I mean it
Speaker 4: was terrible, but it was it was about It was about.
Speaker 4: It was called story of a Dollar.
Speaker 5: It was about Ah, it was about twenty dollars bill
Speaker 5: that was getting passed around the bay.
Speaker 4: You know. So I told a bunch of like tall
Speaker 4: a bunch of.
Speaker 5: Little stories based on that people wore write on the
Speaker 5: dot on the money. It sounded crazy now, right because
Speaker 5: everything digitally, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But that was Chris Rock get a sketch like that once?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Chris Rock.
Speaker 5: Yea, yeah, yeah yeah so so so it was this
Speaker 5: was like, you know, yeah, this was like it's a
Speaker 5: common you know, it's a common idea, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, like an inanimate object that's getting that's getting
Speaker 5: moved around.
Speaker 4: To tell stories to that.
Speaker 5: But when I was you know, I was seventeen, man,
Speaker 5: I was like, yea, this is the most creative shit ever.
Speaker 4: You know, you know.
Speaker 2: When did you both know? When did you both know
Speaker 2: what was gonna be a profession?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Because I'm sure at one time you thought you're gonna
Speaker 2: play football in the league, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm sure one time you thought you were gonna do
Speaker 2: something else. When did y'all know, like this is a profession?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you the time when I knew this
Speaker 3: one had a profession was before I saw Fruit feil station.
Speaker 3: I saw a film he did called Locks, which which
Speaker 3: to this day is one of the most beautiful expressions
Speaker 3: of character and humanity that that I've seen. And it
Speaker 3: was like it was like a silent film almost, and
Speaker 3: I knew that this was a special you know, you know, storyteller.
Speaker 3: And then that was sort of what what drew me?
Speaker 3: Drew me to Ryan? And and what.
Speaker 4: Was your question?
Speaker 2: I would say, when did you know it was going
Speaker 2: to be a profession. You know, everybody wants to be
Speaker 2: a football player, basketball play, everybody has that dream. But
Speaker 2: when you say, no, this is my calling.
Speaker 3: While I was at Howard, I was on the eleven
Speaker 3: year planet Howard. It was interrupted by my stay with
Speaker 3: the federal government. When I when I got out, you know,
Speaker 3: I I kind of bounced around in d c. For
Speaker 3: for a couple of years. Met my wife Vanna in
Speaker 3: ninety four, Uh, sort of got got things on track
Speaker 3: and started. I had to pick a minor, and I
Speaker 3: was so I was a creative writing major. I was
Speaker 3: going to be a writer. That's what I thought I
Speaker 3: was going to do. I was writing, you know, short stories,
Speaker 3: and never got to writing a script. But I had
Speaker 3: to pick a minor, and I picked journalism. And I'd
Speaker 3: met this kid in an AA meeting and he worked
Speaker 3: at this little, tiny news service called the Hispanic Link,
Speaker 3: which at the time, there were very little there's very
Speaker 3: little news telling the story of the Hispanic community in America.
Speaker 3: So this tiny hole in the wall news service in
Speaker 3: DC was syndicated nationwide and it was run by this
Speaker 3: white guy who had married this woman from Ohaca, Mexico.
Speaker 3: And it was a love story and so I was
Speaker 3: just struck by it. And so I made a little
Speaker 3: short documentary and it was my thesis project, my senior
Speaker 3: project at Howard, and I fell in love with it documentary,
Speaker 3: and I looked at where the best, you know, documentary programs,
Speaker 3: and UC Berkeley, the journalism school at Berkeley, has one
Speaker 3: of the one of the top programs, and so I
Speaker 3: went there. When I made that decision to apply to
Speaker 3: graduate school, I kind of knew, like this is what
Speaker 3: I'm committing to do, this is what I'm going.
Speaker 1: For, right are you?
Speaker 4: Ryan?
Speaker 2: When did you know that this was going to be
Speaker 2: your profession? Because I know if one time you said
Speaker 2: I'm going to play in the league, I know you
Speaker 2: thought you was gonna play.
Speaker 4: For the greatest big time. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's a it's a great question I've been
Speaker 5: asked before. My wife always laughed. But it was after
Speaker 5: I made my fourth movie. It was when I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be doing this for a while.
Speaker 1: What was the fourth one?
Speaker 4: Kind of ever, that's what.
Speaker 1: I think it could have been before.
Speaker 5: That one, now I'm telling you, bro C. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: because because I don't know, like some combination of like
Speaker 5: imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3: That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: That sounds like and and internalizing, uh.
Speaker 5: This internalized feeling of it like it's all gonna be
Speaker 5: taken away from me, you know what I'm saying like
Speaker 5: that like that that it just went away.
Speaker 1: So you didn't think that's good enough?
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 5: It was a combination of a lot of things. From
Speaker 5: one I didn't think I was good enough, Like like
Speaker 5: I was thinking I was fooling people.
Speaker 4: I got lucky with each movie. You you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying.
Speaker 5: But I think like we were kind of forever going
Speaker 5: through so much, you know, never one losing chat. You know,
Speaker 5: you want losing chat. Rest in peace, man. And he
Speaker 5: had he had so much confidence, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And and and he would speak, you know, he would
Speaker 5: speak confidence in me when I was having mom as
Speaker 5: a doubt and and a lot of times I would
Speaker 5: think he was just trying to get me through the day.
Speaker 5: You know, you know what I'm saying, because you do
Speaker 5: that with your teammates, right, And he got this, you
Speaker 5: know you don't You might not believe that really got
Speaker 5: you're telling him, you know what I'm saying. But but
Speaker 5: but then in retrospect after he passed, and knowing what
Speaker 5: I know about him, that he he was never he
Speaker 5: was never he would never be as somebody, you know.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying.
Speaker 5: In finishing that film, and that was like the first
Speaker 5: time I was like, Okay, I think I'm gonna be
Speaker 5: I think I'm gonna be doing this for the rest
Speaker 5: of my life.
Speaker 2: How nerve racking was that film with all those celebrities
Speaker 2: and all those stars and people that's been in so
Speaker 2: many movies.
Speaker 5: The first one. Yeah, crazy nerve racking, bro. But the
Speaker 5: thing is all my moves is nerve racking. My nerves
Speaker 5: was racked on the short he was talking about you know, so,
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, you you know that feeling, you know,
Speaker 5: like like you.
Speaker 2: Don't ever get to a point where you like, I've
Speaker 2: done enough where I'm comfortable and I.
Speaker 4: I'm getting there. Yeah, Like I think I think I'm
Speaker 4: getting there. You know, You're never the.
Speaker 5: Point where you're comfortable, Yeah, where I feel like I'm
Speaker 5: gonna be doing this for some time.
Speaker 1: I would say confident, You're confident.
Speaker 5: In you getting there, getting there.
Speaker 3: Also, I think it's it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 3: belief that your voice, what you have to say, is
Speaker 3: going to be received. You know, it's going to be
Speaker 3: received by the culture, by the critics, by by the audiences.
Speaker 3: And our culture sort of shifts and those voices, the
Speaker 3: voices that do matter, that do bubble up to the surfaces.
Speaker 3: It's not always because of the the relevance or the power.
Speaker 4: Of those voices.
Speaker 3: It's sort of the ecosystem of our culture and society
Speaker 3: allows certain voices to come forward.
Speaker 2: Is a depressure of knowing how many young minorities look
Speaker 2: up to you guys, like I want to be the
Speaker 2: next you know what I mean? Is that part of
Speaker 2: it as well?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Man, it's it's so much.
Speaker 5: It's all of it, bro Like like y'all, y'all feel it,
Speaker 5: y'all black, you know what I'm saying. You know when
Speaker 5: you get it, when you when you first got this job,
Speaker 5: it's like, I gotta do my thing for my family,
Speaker 5: but also gotta do my thing for the next person
Speaker 5: who looked like me, who want.
Speaker 1: To do this that came later. At first, it was
Speaker 1: just about survival. Yeah, yeah, because I have been fired
Speaker 1: for four times for it was about survival. Then once
Speaker 1: you start to realize the magnitude of the platform, it's
Speaker 1: like you gotta do it for the people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And what's great it is like, look, it's Monday, right.
Speaker 5: I ain't checked the papers, but I think Stephen Cable's
Speaker 5: movie was number one Transform it was number one. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like he got this movie coming, he got we got
Speaker 5: we got a step doctor that's.
Speaker 4: Gonna come in.
Speaker 5: And like the more the more that that that that's
Speaker 5: of us, that succeeding it actually takes some of the
Speaker 5: pressure off, you know what I'm saying, like like that
Speaker 5: that's that's also and it has also helped you know what,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean Like, it's not like it's
Speaker 5: only one we got one shot, we got one represent representative.
Speaker 5: It's like I'm always a bunch of us, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, and and and and and that's changing
Speaker 5: the fabric of what a blockbuster director. It looks like
Speaker 5: I want to know or what you know or or
Speaker 5: you know, how much how much support a nonfiction film
Speaker 5: gets from you know, from from from from from a
Speaker 5: studio or from from the audience.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying is typically very little. Extremely
Speaker 3: grateful for for the platform that pros Proximity has provided.
Speaker 3: And that is a powerful idea to sort of validate
Speaker 3: not just different perspectives of voice, but different genres and
Speaker 3: styles of storytelling.
Speaker 1: One more thing about the imposita syndrome. When you're Ryan Coogler,
Speaker 1: and we know the greatness of Ryan Coogler, but the
Speaker 1: media will say things like, oh he might he's the
Speaker 1: next George Lucas, Like you're always the next somebody. I
Speaker 1: never just use that that that.
Speaker 4: Holl on Bro. Is that a crowd rail bag? Of course?
Speaker 3: Okay, sho sixty.
Speaker 6: He keeps all the changing, right, man, I might I
Speaker 6: got a hey, am I bad?
Speaker 4: Bro? I just I just went back honey memory uncles Bro.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, my bad, my bad? Ar Man?
Speaker 1: Is that is that contributed in pot syndrome? The mas
Speaker 1: in her? The next someone?
Speaker 4: It don't help that, that never helps, you know. But
Speaker 4: what I'm thankful. What I'm thankful for.
Speaker 5: Man, It's like like I'm thankful for the ogs, Like
Speaker 5: like I saw, I saw Spielberg a few days ago,
Speaker 5: you know, spend the day with Spike. You know, I
Speaker 5: shat down for a coupler. I sat down with with
Speaker 5: with with Chris Nolan. You know, I was very rest
Speaker 5: in peace. John Singleton was very close with him, you know.
Speaker 5: And and having a relationship with the ogs. It's helpful
Speaker 5: if they say you the next whatever, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean? You know what I'm saying, Like I side
Speaker 5: with side with George Lucas, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Like you know, and I know these guys as guys
Speaker 5: and they can kind of advise and say, man, throw
Speaker 5: all that away, you know what I'm saying, Like you know,
Speaker 5: like this is gonna this is gonna come, that's gonna come.
Speaker 5: It's been you know, it's been really really helpful. So
Speaker 5: but but but you never, it never helps to to
Speaker 5: hear somebody compare you to A to a like a
Speaker 5: generational grade.
Speaker 4: You know, you know what I'm saying. That's why, that's
Speaker 4: why I feel for Brin.
Speaker 1: You know, we will never appreciate Bro. I say that
Speaker 1: all the time. You'll never appreciate Brian if you can
Speaker 1: keep comparing them to this ghost thro the Michael Jordan.
Speaker 5: To tell you something, Bro, Me and me and Zenzi
Speaker 5: went to Game three when when when the damn Lakers
Speaker 5: knocked us out Bro in the second round, and we
Speaker 5: worked with We worked with Stephan bron Right, We worked
Speaker 5: with space Jam, and we worked on the beautiful movie
Speaker 5: Pete He's got coming off and this dude man thirty eight,
Speaker 5: and he would have players, Bro, because he knew me
Speaker 5: as Ang was there. He would have plays where he
Speaker 5: would get the ball.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 4: He would point to us score and.
Speaker 5: Point to after he scored, like y'all all about to
Speaker 5: score right now, you know what I'm saying. Like, and
Speaker 5: it was just it was just doing and I was like,
Speaker 5: I've never seen anything I never I've never seen anything
Speaker 5: like this guy man, and like and everything he does
Speaker 5: is always compared to something you know, something to.
Speaker 4: Or or you know or his Koreean you know he
Speaker 4: was doing it. It's like it's got to do the
Speaker 4: jump hook that day that we can't appreciate.
Speaker 5: It for the for the for the for comparison shake,
Speaker 5: you know. But but I will say, like this whole
Speaker 5: time I've had Pete bro you know what I'm saying
Speaker 5: as a friend who you know, you know, people don't
Speaker 5: know him as much as I might not George look
Speaker 5: at or spill word. But incredible working filmmaker and a
Speaker 5: family man, you know what I'm saying, who got wisdom
Speaker 5: for you whenever I whenever I needed in terms of navigation.
Speaker 4: So I'll be for ever, be for ever thankful for.
Speaker 5: Him and help him make this beautiful movie man anthem
Speaker 5: that only he could make. You know, I could talk
Speaker 5: to him more about it, but only he could make
Speaker 5: a movie where you know, it's like, Yo, we're gonna
Speaker 5: we're gonna examine this national institution.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: It's got all these triggering for everybody. You know, and
Speaker 5: come out with a come out with a song. On
Speaker 5: the other side, you come out watching a movie feeling good,
Speaker 5: you know. But she like, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for
Speaker 5: him too, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Peter. It made me wonder watching anthem, why did
Speaker 1: black people ever accept the anthem to begin with? Why
Speaker 1: did they ever accept the national anthem to begin with?
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I've seen it from from
Speaker 3: a lot of different perspectives, you know, I guess. I
Speaker 3: like to say I was born into the story of race.
Speaker 3: I was born in sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: My birth mother's white. My birth father was black. Her
Speaker 3: family threatening disowner if she married him. She put me
Speaker 3: up for adoption. I was adopted by a black family.
Speaker 3: My dad's the senative slave from the South Gulla. My
Speaker 3: mom's South Carolina. South Carolina. Yeah, my mom, her parents
Speaker 3: came over from West Africa, Cape verd I married a woman,
Speaker 3: a refugee from Laos. I've got kids who are mixed race.
Speaker 3: Been in federal prison on a drug charge, went to
Speaker 3: all white private schools, went to Howard. So I've seen
Speaker 3: life from all these different angles and perspectives, and in
Speaker 3: all my work at the same time, I've never been
Speaker 3: thrown down on the ground by a cop. I've never
Speaker 3: been I've been called nigger a couple of times, but
Speaker 3: that's usually when I'm with my other family. People don't
Speaker 3: kind of know how to pin me, you know, and
Speaker 3: I generally can can slide.
Speaker 1: Through, uh like miscellaneous, kind of miscellaneous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that that that also sort of burrowed into
Speaker 3: my own psyche about my identity. Who am Who am I?
Speaker 3: And I think that that question of who am I
Speaker 3: is also the question I think as a country we're
Speaker 3: trying to sort of grapple with who are we? We're
Speaker 3: all different, we're all the same. And I think all
Speaker 3: of my work I like to step into spaces that
Speaker 3: are that are a little bit that are messy and
Speaker 3: examining those questions, whether it's you know, what are our
Speaker 3: values as a country and delivering health care to Americans
Speaker 3: and you know, setting that in a in a public
Speaker 3: hospital waiting room. What does it mean if a police
Speaker 3: department says they're trying to reform, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: And is that real? How important is education, you know,
Speaker 3: to to equity in our culture? And so, you know,
Speaker 3: the anthem was was sort of a natural examining that
Speaker 3: question of you know, can should you love it or
Speaker 3: hate it? Should you should we tear it down? Should
Speaker 3: we burn it? Should we recreate it? Some people love it,
Speaker 3: some people hate it. I love Jimmy Hendrix's version to
Speaker 3: me was always like beyond, like it went into some
Speaker 3: spiritual place. It was still the anthem. It's still the
Speaker 3: star spangled banner at the end of the day. Marvin
Speaker 3: Gaye's version jose Feliciano, you know, these are all beautiful
Speaker 3: renditions of a song that that is being unpacked, but
Speaker 3: it's still it's still the anthem. And I felt that
Speaker 3: that was a great starting point to sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: think about, well, what would it mean to create a
Speaker 3: new anthem? And if we were to create a new
Speaker 3: anthem today and allow the diversity of voice in this
Speaker 3: country to create that song, what would that be? And
Speaker 3: on the surface, it's an impossible it's an impossible task.
Speaker 3: You can't really we were like, do we need to like,
Speaker 3: you know, get into sort of like blues hip hop, gospel, jazz,
Speaker 3: like rock house music, go go. I mean, there's so
Speaker 3: many different styles of music that reflect the American story,
Speaker 3: So you know, there could be another two or three movies,
Speaker 3: you know, on this on this idea, using this construct.
Speaker 2: One thing I do love is is you know anthem.
Speaker 2: Besides anthem, I love the evolution story, right because a
Speaker 2: lot of times in this day and age, people don't
Speaker 2: allow you to evolve.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: They look at your past and they try to keep
Speaker 2: you in the past of who you were. And the
Speaker 2: fact that you talk about everything that you've been through
Speaker 2: and how you've changed and the things that you're doing,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't think a lot of times people
Speaker 2: allow people to have that evolution.
Speaker 1: And to change.
Speaker 2: So I commend that. And have you had a hard
Speaker 2: time because of your past, because you know, Charlamagne and myself,
Speaker 2: we've all had a pass and we talk about our past.
Speaker 2: And the reason we talk about it is because you know,
Speaker 2: nobody's ever perfect, right, There's no life that's perfect. People
Speaker 2: go through shit. So the fact that you talk about
Speaker 2: the things that you've been through and you're still able
Speaker 2: to leave your mark on the world on some positive
Speaker 2: is the amazing story.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I don't know why, you know, I
Speaker 3: you know what I remember distinctly when when I got
Speaker 3: out of prison, I got a job working at this
Speaker 3: this elementary school in DC, which you know I was at.
Speaker 3: I went back to Howard and they have like an
Speaker 3: internship program where you fill out, you know, where do
Speaker 3: you want to work? And I kind of went into
Speaker 3: the space of denial of what had happened to me,
Speaker 3: and I didn't check the box, you know, basically lied
Speaker 3: and I got placed at this elementary school, which happened
Speaker 3: to be a school where like presidents like where Obama
Speaker 3: sends his kids, where like some of those powerful people
Speaker 3: in DC send their kids. And I remember I took
Speaker 3: the job. I was working at this job and one
Speaker 3: day the lawyer who represented represented me in my case,
Speaker 3: which was prosecuted by Merrick Garland is now the Attorney
Speaker 3: General the United States walked in on a tour with
Speaker 3: his son, and I was my job that day was
Speaker 3: to like check all the parents in and give them
Speaker 3: name tax and here comes my lawyer and he sees me,
Speaker 3: and he and he we looked at each other and
Speaker 3: he was like, Oh, how are you doing? And he's
Speaker 3: probably thinking himself, what the hell is this guy doing
Speaker 3: drug traffic or doing working at the school. Presumably I'm
Speaker 3: going to send my kid And you know, I eventually
Speaker 3: left that job, and I had to tell all the
Speaker 3: people you know that I had lied. And from that
Speaker 3: point forward, I decided that I was going to tell
Speaker 3: my story. I was going to step into the difficult
Speaker 3: space of being real about my story, talking about my
Speaker 3: dad's alcoholism, asking my dad about his alcoholism on camera.
Speaker 3: We had never taught Black families don't talk about Trump,
Speaker 3: their trauma, their mental health, things like alcoholism, And it
Speaker 3: just felt like an empowering thing. And it also felt
Speaker 3: like something that our country needed to do more was
Speaker 3: examine and step into these more real, authentic spaces.
Speaker 1: We are all those things. I want to ask about anthem,
Speaker 1: what what do you think it would take to actually
Speaker 1: create a new national anthem?
Speaker 3: Well, one of the one of the insights that seemed
Speaker 3: very common as we asked that same question to a
Speaker 3: lot of people in the making of the film and
Speaker 3: also now that the film's coming out, is that maybe
Speaker 3: there can't be one anthem. You know, there there has
Speaker 3: to be many anthems. I mean, the idea of anthem
Speaker 3: is so you know, there's the anthem, the national anthem,
Speaker 3: and then there's like personal anthems that the song you
Speaker 3: put on at the gym or the song that you
Speaker 3: that that that you recall when you got married, or
Speaker 3: of the song that just gets you hyped. You know,
Speaker 3: that's something that inspires you. You know, we all have
Speaker 3: different ways of allowing these songs and these because songs
Speaker 3: are ultimately stories, they're narratives, the narratives that we tell ourselves,
Speaker 3: and the narratives that we used to reflect you know,
Speaker 3: our families, our communities, and that can't be boiled down
Speaker 3: into one song. But that the intention of allowing you know,
Speaker 3: multiple perspectives to inform a national anthem, a national story,
Speaker 3: wasn't how the original song was created. That Francis scott
Speaker 3: Key was created using the music of you know this
Speaker 3: British you know pub song, and so that that intention
Speaker 3: could lead to other insights and meaning that we could carry,
Speaker 3: you know, into our future as a country.
Speaker 1: The doc also had me thinking if there was a
Speaker 1: new national anthem, what what genre of music would it
Speaker 1: be delivered through? Because I love the way y'all went
Speaker 1: through country, which I never even referred to as white.
Speaker 1: When you referred to it as white soul, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it is white soul, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Jazz?
Speaker 1: Like, what genre of music. Would it be best delivered
Speaker 1: through the way America would embrace it.
Speaker 3: I was having this conversation with the dude outside the
Speaker 3: feller last night. I think, what's his name, David Bryant,
Speaker 3: And I asked him and immediately he was like, hip hop,
Speaker 3: hip hop, and I'm sixty eight. I was born in
Speaker 3: sixty eight, so I am the age of hip hop.
Speaker 3: And we talked about it. You know, we because we hot.
Speaker 3: We we brought on Dahi early, early in the process,
Speaker 3: and Dahi's produced some of.
Speaker 2: You know, hip hop's artists, so many different people, and
Speaker 2: you know, it was weird to hear him say that
Speaker 2: he's only been to New York in l A too.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, that he hasn't been in the
Speaker 2: middle of America. I thought that was weird.
Speaker 3: That was a lot of us haven't a lot a
Speaker 3: lot of us, you know, don't don't don't enter these spaces.
Speaker 3: We we we grow up in our communities. We sometimes
Speaker 3: stuff out sometimes, but there are you know, definitely places
Speaker 3: in the South or Nashville. It's it's like you saw
Speaker 3: what happened when when they pulled up and what are
Speaker 3: you all doing it? And they didn't fully articulate what
Speaker 3: they were doing. They said, they said, what are y'all doing?
Speaker 3: You know, we're all we're making a documentary exploring American music.
Speaker 3: They didn't say, we're making a documentary rewriting the national
Speaker 3: you know. So I do think, but but I think,
Speaker 3: you know, saying hip hop, you should be hip hop
Speaker 3: like that, that is, you know, gospel, you know house
Speaker 3: house music. All these things are inflections. But you know,
Speaker 3: the blues thing. We knew that there were certain foundational
Speaker 3: places that we wanted to explore. Blues is one of
Speaker 3: those foundational places Native American music, which is very rarely
Speaker 3: included in the conversation of the American music story. We
Speaker 3: knew that we wanted to step into those spaces and
Speaker 3: allow them to inform the song the movie.
Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean what the doc made me think that
Speaker 1: hip Hop's night is rooted in soul and spirit, as
Speaker 1: it should be. It feels like a lot of the
Speaker 1: hip hop is rooted in that we listen to now
Speaker 1: is rooted in capitalism more so than the stuff that
Speaker 1: y'all had in the doc. That when you listen to
Speaker 1: the blues and the country, like it was root the
Speaker 1: Native America, if it was rooted in soul and spirit.
Speaker 1: Why why do you think that is right?
Speaker 4: That's a heavy question, bro.
Speaker 5: I mean I'm I'm older today than I've ever been.
Speaker 5: And yeah, like like I like my I think I
Speaker 5: think it's I think music is complicated. I think black
Speaker 5: music is is. I got my own theories about it.
Speaker 5: I love that this doc is kind of about American music,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like it's it's it's it's
Speaker 5: anthem on the surface, but it's really about American music
Speaker 5: and about watching the song being written, which I think
Speaker 5: is fascinating because because because you got stand up comedy
Speaker 5: and you got music, I think there is like two
Speaker 5: like it's straight alchemy, you know.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Like when.
Speaker 5: You when you see people do it, and I think that,
Speaker 5: like I think that black music has always been a
Speaker 5: call back home, like a report, Hey we were still here,
Speaker 5: Hey we okay, Like.
Speaker 4: This here's what's happening. You know what I'm saying anybody
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 5: To hear is you know I always feel that this
Speaker 5: electricity runs through my body whenever I come to New York.
Speaker 5: I think a part of it is just that it's
Speaker 5: it's ten million people running around trying to.
Speaker 4: Make a way.
Speaker 5: But another part of it is this force that's been
Speaker 5: ever present in my life that's given me a sense
Speaker 5: of power. Hip hop it was founded here, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, And you can you can feel it,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. Like I don't know if
Speaker 5: it's that I know it was here or I can
Speaker 5: feel it here, but it's fantastic, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I think that that things constantly changed, and I think
Speaker 5: the reason why you're hearing this this this this trend
Speaker 5: towards like hypercapitalistic.
Speaker 4: Or you know, it's a lot of it is like
Speaker 4: war music, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: But I think it's I think it's like about the
Speaker 5: right to self determine that people looking for and whatever
Speaker 5: route that whatever route they can find it.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And sometimes sometimes maybe it's quote unquote misguided. Sometimes it's
Speaker 5: sometimes it's truthful, you know what I mean, Like like
Speaker 5: somebody that's living in poverty, surrounded by it, they think
Speaker 5: they might think they're having some money, is the way
Speaker 5: they can self determined, make themselves safe, get their.
Speaker 4: Family out of where they are.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, sometimes they think picking up
Speaker 5: a weapon is what's the way they're self determined. They
Speaker 5: feeling vulnerable or weak. You know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 5: got to shut it that I'm that I'm strong and
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I think it's I think it's it's usually some form
Speaker 5: of truth in it. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 5: like whether whether you know at thirty whether at thirty seven.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, I'm loving you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. You know what I mean that that's my
Speaker 5: best explanation for it. But I think that's what I think,
Speaker 5: that's what everybody wants. I think that's what's so interesting
Speaker 5: about it. You know what I'm saying, Like I come
Speaker 5: from the home of the pan answers.
Speaker 4: It's all about the right to self.
Speaker 5: Determined, you know what I'm saying, The claim to claim
Speaker 5: my humanity and self determined, my safety and where I
Speaker 5: can go, my where my body can be, where my.
Speaker 4: Children can feel safe. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 4: and I hear that in the blues, I hear that
Speaker 4: in jazz.
Speaker 5: I hear that, And you know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 5: hear it in all of you, you know, hope to
Speaker 5: answer that question.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess when you was talking to made
Speaker 1: me feel like it.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I guess capitalism can can ruin art, right, So
Speaker 1: so I wonder what's what's more fulfilling for you? Doing
Speaker 1: something like Fruitvale Station. Are our black fans.
Speaker 4: What's more fulfilling?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not not even just those two movies in particular,
Speaker 1: but doing a movie like and more of an independent
Speaker 1: way than a big black bus were.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, let me ask you, what's a great question? Bro?
Speaker 5: I think at the time, I've been blessed to do
Speaker 5: the most fulfilling thing, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, if we talked about that,
Speaker 5: like how we don't get the ability to change, right?
Speaker 5: I think guys, I think as black people, we can
Speaker 5: be the hardest hard shoves when it comes to that,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying, Like, like I'm from I'm
Speaker 5: from I was.
Speaker 4: Born in Oakland. My whole family's from there. We know.
Speaker 4: Was like, but check it out, bro, I'm getting.
Speaker 5: Somewhere, bron get bro, Like I was like editor nine,
Speaker 5: we moved to Richmond, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 5: like still to this day I have people ask, hey, bro,
Speaker 5: you're from Oakland and Richmond. You know, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, and like and like the truth is come
Speaker 5: from both. You know, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But but that's not.
Speaker 5: Allowed at home, you know. You know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like you got to pick bro. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Like it's like it is it this? Where is it
Speaker 5: that you gotta stick with it for your whole life?
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like like when I'm if
Speaker 5: I'm blessed to live to be one hundreds, Hey, bro,
Speaker 5: you from Oakland.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. It's like with damn.
Speaker 2: You ever go back to Oakland and say, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, Damn, I made it out of here.
Speaker 4: I'm still there.
Speaker 1: He's there. Yeah, you know, I'm still here in Oakland
Speaker 1: to the core. But it's beautiful from Carolanta.
Speaker 4: So I know exactly some days where I'm like, Damn,
Speaker 4: I'm still alive. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Because I was out and I'm driving. I was staying
Speaker 2: at the hotel and I wanted to get some need
Speaker 2: It's like go to the next corner. In the next corner
Speaker 2: was Oakland, Oakland like fresh fried spots with the gates
Speaker 2: in it. I'm like, where the am I And like
Speaker 2: you still see like it looks like riots happened yesterday,
Speaker 2: Like you see stuff boarded up and stuff broken down,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, God, damn no.
Speaker 5: It's it's so sexy. Are you in Queens Queen? Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean it's I mean, I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 5: like wherever we are, you see, you know you could
Speaker 5: you can be on the right or the wrong spot.
Speaker 4: You know. Look, man, we've been at the country's been
Speaker 4: at a world with us since we've been here. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 5: Like it's the truth, like you see so you see
Speaker 5: it reflected, like whether it's financial, you know, like whether
Speaker 5: it's whether it's all you know alright, Jim Crawl, whether.
Speaker 4: It was you know, full blong you know, our bodies
Speaker 4: being illegal.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like, like you know, so
Speaker 5: you share it, you see the reflections of it, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. And it's splashing Cleveland everywhere here Detroit, Aukland.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You know you go where d I just want to
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try to see formulate. How how I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say this because a lot in this going back to
Speaker 3: your question about what's you know, the independent versus the
Speaker 3: blockbuster and capitalist. But I saw a Black Panther in
Speaker 3: a theater in Utah where my daughter was in treatment
Speaker 3: for mental health and addiction. She was she was sixteenth
Speaker 3: time and we were visiting her, and uh we went
Speaker 3: to see Black Panther and a theater packed full of
Speaker 3: white Mormons watching Black Panther. And to me, that was
Speaker 3: a profound reality and impact that that Ryan's worked as
Speaker 3: very commercial, big blockbuster Marvel movie. I don't think people
Speaker 3: fully sort of understand the impact that that had on
Speaker 3: the culture and sort of changing the narrative. And you know,
Speaker 3: changing those narratives is so important. It's important internally, I
Speaker 3: you know, talking about trauma, talking about our communities, black
Speaker 3: communities going back generations, back to slavery. Like my dad's family,
Speaker 3: he had unresolved trauma. You know, he was drinking. I
Speaker 3: only found out after he died that he was told
Speaker 3: when he was a young man to step into the
Speaker 3: gutter when white people approached him, you know, on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3: My daughter, you know, I dealt with addiction. My daughter
Speaker 3: dealt with addiction and we lost her at the age
Speaker 3: of sixteen. So the consequences of sort of unrecognized and on,
Speaker 3: you know, trauma that's not dealt with in narrative is profound,
Speaker 3: and I think Ryan's work is doing it both in
Speaker 3: this very intimate way with with sort of an independent
Speaker 3: approach like Fruit Felle Station, and on the biggest stage
Speaker 3: with these blockbusters. It's powerful, and I think it's also
Speaker 3: going to influence other creatives in those spaces to use
Speaker 3: their voices and to use these stages because now we're
Speaker 3: getting more opportunities. We're getting more opportunities.
Speaker 1: That's why I like Black Panther two so much, because
Speaker 1: you know, I put Ryan in the same vein as
Speaker 1: like a Kendrick or even a Cold because even with
Speaker 1: the massive success, you won't compromise your art.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, bro.
Speaker 5: I just realized I didn't ask your question, man, like
Speaker 5: they all are are fulfilling at the time, because I'm
Speaker 5: different each time. You know what I'm saying, Like, you know,
Speaker 5: make Prouville when I was I was twenty five, are
Speaker 5: you seven?
Speaker 4: Now? You know?
Speaker 5: I don't know if I don't know if I can
Speaker 5: make that movie now. You know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 5: don't got the optimism that I had then or the energy.
Speaker 4: You know, you get met it in like twenty twenty days.
Speaker 4: We didn't sleep, you know what.
Speaker 5: I got to sleep now, you know, like our family now,
Speaker 5: you know, like it's been impossible, But that was the
Speaker 5: most feeling thing that I could have done at that time.
Speaker 5: I've been blessed to like do fulfilling work. You know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. With this company, it's fantastic. I get
Speaker 5: to support filmmaker's vision. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 5: you don't make the more, We're gonna make a new
Speaker 5: national anthem. I'm like, holy shit, let's let's do it.
Speaker 4: What do you need? You know? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Can I help? You know? Uh? And it's it's an
Speaker 4: incredible blessing man to go to.
Speaker 1: I know they telling us you got to wrap up.
Speaker 1: So I guess this question would be the last question.
Speaker 1: How do you keep the national anthem hopeful and empowering
Speaker 1: with so much of America's history being negative for the
Speaker 1: majority of groups that we've been here, Because you know,
Speaker 1: we keep talking about we are having these discussions about
Speaker 1: what America is. I think we know what America is
Speaker 1: trying to We're trying to put the mirror up to
Speaker 1: them and let them see what America.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's different things to different people, right Like.
Speaker 5: And that's what's so beautiful about the songing Man was
Speaker 5: that you know, you get you got, you got four
Speaker 5: women from different backgrounds and different experiences with the country,
Speaker 5: you know, putting down verses that feel true to them.
Speaker 5: It's not compromising. And then when you hear it saying
Speaker 5: you know, it's like, you know, you identify with each
Speaker 5: with each piece because maybe it's like I don't know
Speaker 5: somebody who's indigenous. Well I'm not indigenous myself to this,
Speaker 5: to this, to this land, but I know people who are.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know people who having issues with
Speaker 5: borders moving across them and back and forth or getting more,
Speaker 5: you know. And when you hear the words saying, you
Speaker 5: feel it, you know what I'm saying, like I don't
Speaker 5: you know. When you hear Charity like in Our twenties
Speaker 5: from Nashville sing about her family in the in the military,
Speaker 5: then she says like like all gays some but some
Speaker 5: gave all man you feel it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And white people don't own the military, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. My grandfather falling in every word after was
Speaker 5: fault while he was alive.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: You know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And so when you take a step back and look
Speaker 5: at the song that they made it and the process
Speaker 5: of how they made it, man, you know, you acquire
Speaker 5: saying it man, and it works, you know what I'm saying, Like, like,
Speaker 5: you know, so I think it's I think it's an
Speaker 5: incredible utility that.
Speaker 4: They that they gave and that's all. The song is
Speaker 4: a utility. Man.
Speaker 5: You might use it to get through some personal loss.
Speaker 5: You might use it to do your homework.
Speaker 4: You might use it to to lift at the gym.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like it's a it's a
Speaker 5: it's a it's a piece of art that's a utility,
Speaker 5: and it's up to the people to use.
Speaker 4: It, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just really simply empowering
Speaker 3: people to tell to tell their story, you know. And
Speaker 3: you know, anthems inspiring people to express their own idea
Speaker 3: of an anthem. I remember when we ate the waiting room,
Speaker 3: the story of this film about Island Hospital. Before we
Speaker 3: made the film, we did this little digital storytelling project
Speaker 3: where we interviewed hundreds of people stuck in the waiting room.
Speaker 3: We asked everybody the same thing, what are you waiting for?
Speaker 3: And the results of that simple question were profound, and
Speaker 3: I got into the you know, you're dealing with some
Speaker 3: people who look dangerous, somebody who just pissed on themselves,
Speaker 3: somebody who's ranting, dealing with mental illness. And I got
Speaker 3: into this this this space where I was approaching everybody,
Speaker 3: even if I was uncomfortable, and some of the people
Speaker 3: that I was most uncomfortable with the results in their story,
Speaker 3: allowing them, empowering them in that moment to tell their story,
Speaker 3: even if I didn't maybe agree with their politics or
Speaker 3: their position because some people were talking about healthcare, some
Speaker 3: people were conservative in those spaces, but they're also suffering somehow,
Speaker 3: and that sort of collective that that unifying suffering and
Speaker 3: allowing people to tell the allowing people the framework to
Speaker 3: tell their story in that space was powerful. And I
Speaker 3: think hopefully this film can allow people to recognize that
Speaker 3: sometimes we do have to put these stories that are
Speaker 3: difficult next to each other and allow the alchemy to
Speaker 3: just happen because we can't. We just can't ignore it.
Speaker 3: We're in a difficult time in our country right now.
Speaker 3: It's like we're at a crossroads right now, and it
Speaker 3: could go this way, it could go that way. But
Speaker 3: the optimism, both for my own family and the generational
Speaker 3: trauma that we face, that there's a path out that
Speaker 3: you don't have to stay in that.
Speaker 2: Well, we appreciate you bubbs for joining us. And you know,
Speaker 2: anytime you got some a movie or something that you
Speaker 2: want to promote, documentary, y'all invited up here, come on
Speaker 2: up and use the platform.
Speaker 1: What's next? I mean the writer's happening now, man.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is a big shout out to the writers. WG.
Speaker 4: I is striking right now, you know, trying to get you.
Speaker 3: Know, underrated. That's that's uh, that's next for us, Like
Speaker 3: on the nonfiction.
Speaker 4: On the non fishing shot. Yes, so non fishing you
Speaker 4: can do.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's not it's not started with w G A
Speaker 5: originated work, you know what I'm saying it out side
Speaker 5: of that so I can help promote. But we got
Speaker 5: got underrated, beautiful, beautiful movie about Steph Curry very underrated.
Speaker 1: He's the number two greatest player of all time.
Speaker 3: When you just started acting like it's coming full circle, you.
Speaker 2: Got who's not the top three NBA? Let's talk about
Speaker 2: it right now?
Speaker 5: Just quick question before you the top five in the
Speaker 5: league right now all time.
Speaker 3: I can give you my Quron and Lebron's in there.
Speaker 1: I got Michael Jordan's, Steph Perry, Kobe Bryant, Lebron, and
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson. That's my top five man.
Speaker 4: That yeah, I mean that's I'm not doing this, man,
Speaker 4: I literally a mad movie. I made a movie.
Speaker 5: I met it movie with Bron. I made movie with Steph.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, I'm not doing this.
Speaker 1: Like Lebron three times in the NBA.
Speaker 4: I'm a Warriors fan lifelong.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like like like Steph, No, no, no,
Speaker 5: Steph bigger than basketball revolution?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like like like we rre we ride a dog
Speaker 4: with Steph? You know what I'm saying. And Bron's Bron's
Speaker 4: my god man, Like you know.
Speaker 1: It's changed all the basketball women and men's they all
Speaker 1: play like Steph. He revolutionized the game. I've never seen
Speaker 1: nobody do that to.
Speaker 4: Michael Jordan, You're not wrong.
Speaker 5: I'm goa I'm gonna tell you something that's gonna sound
Speaker 5: crazy to this day. Most skilled basketball player I've ever seen,
Speaker 5: I can't allow you want mm hmm, like more skilled.
Speaker 5: I remember watching him as a kid and being like,
Speaker 5: let's do let's do it is crazy. The scariest I
Speaker 5: seen to play against when I was a kid was
Speaker 5: Tim Duncan, and she like he was always win.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. These dudes don't get mentioned.
Speaker 5: At all, and you start talking about when I think
Speaker 5: about it, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 5: how somebody could be better than a chemologed one. You know.
Speaker 1: Now you got the jokes and those guys the kind
Speaker 1: of and I love the King, but yeah, back then
Speaker 1: there was there wasn't too many big men. So when
Speaker 1: when you were it was big.
Speaker 2: They were all they were all big. You didn't have
Speaker 2: it like you know, you had to go past you
Speaker 2: have to What do you used to do to those
Speaker 2: guys like I used to just and he had no
Speaker 2: flaws in his game. Now you think about somebody smaller
Speaker 2: had to get by the big man like it alan.
Speaker 5: Like you like all right, bro, he think about.
Speaker 2: What I did.
Speaker 5: You know when he beat when he beat when he
Speaker 5: beat that that that that Kobe Shock Team game one
Speaker 5: h and no teammates really disrespect these real hoopers. I
Speaker 5: was on a team, but like you know, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 5: so it's it's tough man.
Speaker 1: You're saying all that to say you do think Steph
Speaker 1: is better than Braun.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna bait you right up.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 5: You just don't want I'm a Wears fan, Bro, That's
Speaker 5: what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 4: Bro. And stephan Stephanie and Steph bigger than hoop fush Man,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But I'm also a black man.
Speaker 4: Lebron is bigger than you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: like you know, love Broun, I'm not. I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: get into.
Speaker 1: That talking about on the court.
Speaker 4: I love both of these.
Speaker 5: Guys on the court, roof of the Warriors when they play.
Speaker 4: I love both those dudes.
Speaker 5: I hate that we got to I hate I hate
Speaker 5: that against just hate it. I hate it so much,
Speaker 5: and I hate that they knocked us all. Goddamn bro.
Speaker 1: He said it with his chest number two of all time.
Speaker 3: Give it absolutely absolutely will. I mean, I grew up
Speaker 3: in Boston.
Speaker 4: You know, birds in my y. Let's not go there
Speaker 4: and let's not go there.
Speaker 3: Although two thousand and four, you know, two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: you know Yankees.
Speaker 1: All right, be the Knicks.
Speaker 4: Howard University alumni.
Speaker 2: Let me appreciate you brothers for joining us.
Speaker 4: Man, It's the Breakfast Club. Don't forget anthem.
Speaker 2: June twenty eighth, on Hulu. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,