Speaker 1: M m M. You're listening to Playback, a Variety I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards editor Chris Tapley.
Speaker 1: This week, I'm talking to multi hyphenates David Diggs and
Speaker 1: Raphael Kassol, whose new film Blind Spotting hits theater is July.
Speaker 1: We talked about that longest dating project and the Bay
Speaker 1: Area music scene that shaped these two guys, among other things.
Speaker 1: So sit tight, this is playback. Worry about peanut butter,
Speaker 1: peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter for breakfast. That's what
Speaker 1: I do. My kid likes peanut butter on waffles. Waffles. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: do you do you make a kid real waffles or
Speaker 1: these egos? Oh? No, man either Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although my wife does do like she'll mix up muffin
Speaker 1: batter and so she can sneak like zucchini and like
Speaker 1: vegetables into the He'll actually eat that kid. He just
Speaker 1: turned to very smart waffles exactly. It's not too bad, man,
Speaker 1: The sugar retaste over powers Uh yeah, damn. I still
Speaker 1: I still get eggo waffle cravings sometimes do good. And
Speaker 1: so that's a life. That's a lifetime craving, especially have one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you have a month, Like that's just what
Speaker 1: you do. Now you have a sailor. We have Boots
Speaker 1: Riley in here last week yeah Oakland, well Oakland represent
Speaker 1: I still have I was trying to get there this weekend.
Speaker 1: Didn't make it. It's crazy I try and go during
Speaker 1: our break today. I didn't know much about it and
Speaker 1: I just saw it a couple of weeks ago. I
Speaker 1: was in Sundance. I saw Blind Spotting there I'll talk
Speaker 1: about but I didn't see his movie there, and uh
Speaker 1: so I didn't really know a lot about it. And
Speaker 1: it's it goes places. Man. You saw it, so you
Speaker 1: like or you saw it anyway, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you actually like. Just told me if you saw it,
Speaker 1: you must have it. You must have liked it, like
Speaker 1: it feels like my kind of movie. Like I'm fairly
Speaker 1: certain I'm gonna like he told me I was gonna
Speaker 1: like it. So it's good stuff. Man, I'm always still going.
Speaker 1: But what are you? What do you put on your head?
Speaker 1: Goes sir Sarah. I'm just straight better. I don't even
Speaker 1: really like starrup on it. If I if I use like, well, jam,
Speaker 1: I'll throw a little jam on it. I don't I
Speaker 1: if I use syrup, it's it's like in a in
Speaker 1: Ford little squares or something. I like very scaring. I
Speaker 1: like a full pool when I'm messing with the wall.
Speaker 1: It's not surprising. Give me the whole to the brim
Speaker 1: fried chicken too. I'm done with the fried chicken and water.
Speaker 1: Little fried chicken in the syrup and fried chick. You
Speaker 1: got it, all right, Friday, let's see that kind of
Speaker 1: like now they're making art out of here. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to eat the whole box and then terrible
Speaker 1: about myself. I just want to eat the whole box
Speaker 1: of Eggos and then cry myself. Just right. Put my
Speaker 1: questions here. I don't know if the last go telling you,
Speaker 1: But the closer you can get to the mix, the better.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the sms of them, are you wow?
Speaker 1: I guess you would be. With the music. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the travel brig. These things are like tanks
Speaker 1: and put them in your bag. They won't get backed up.
Speaker 1: They sound great. All right, we are recording, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna jump in. All right, everyone, I'm here today with
Speaker 1: the writers and stars of Blind Spotting to Bee Digs
Speaker 1: and Rafael Kassol say that correct did out the gate.
Speaker 1: I saw the movie and Sundance as I was saying,
Speaker 1: awesome movie, I saw it Sundance. I saw it like
Speaker 1: eleven thirty PM. Yeah, the Egyptian Yeah, man, we didn't
Speaker 1: get to go to that one, right, that's the one
Speaker 1: we didn't get to go to. It was exciting. Oakland
Speaker 1: was definitely in the house there. Yeah. Yeah, that feels
Speaker 1: like a lifetime ago. Sundance all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: so crazy. We've been talking about this movie since then.
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I wanted to start there. What was
Speaker 1: your your Sundance experience? Like a blur blur, mean, we don't,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't get to see any movies when
Speaker 1: we were there, which is the only unfortunate thing it was.
Speaker 1: It was such a luckily the movie was really well
Speaker 1: received there, and so we're in this press tornado for
Speaker 1: the bulk of the time there. But but you know,
Speaker 1: the the ironic part is were like movie buffs and
Speaker 1: we didn't get to see any day. Yeah. Very excited
Speaker 1: to go back to Sundance as Justice spectator. I've been
Speaker 1: twice in the first time was the year before to
Speaker 1: play a show, to play a concert, a concert there
Speaker 1: for a concert for another movie, but we weren't a
Speaker 1: part of that movie. Yeah, but as one of the
Speaker 1: composer series that they've been they've started doing and Sundance
Speaker 1: our friends somewhat to hinder Hughes had us out to
Speaker 1: play a concert with him and that was great, but
Speaker 1: also didn't get to see movies. So one year I'll
Speaker 1: go to Sundance and just watched some damn movies because
Speaker 1: it seems like that would be really fun to do there.
Speaker 1: It seems like the people doing that are having a
Speaker 1: great time. Although the other end of the spectrum is
Speaker 1: you know when you're working the festival as a journalist
Speaker 1: and you're seeing like six movies in a day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not for me personally. I don't like that because
Speaker 1: I could see how I could see how you know,
Speaker 1: your perspective on whether or not you're watching a good
Speaker 1: piece of work can't get warped after a while. If
Speaker 1: I'm a filmmaker, I don't want somebody in there like
Speaker 1: when they exhausted. Yeah, I guess, yeah. I think the
Speaker 1: moral is that, like if you're working at a film festival,
Speaker 1: it kind of sucks. Yeah, but you're just but like
Speaker 1: any spectator is pretty great. Uh. How did you guys meet?
Speaker 1: I want to start there and kind of work our
Speaker 1: way into them days we meet the story that you've
Speaker 1: probably told a million times only today, the we met
Speaker 1: in high school years ago. I mean we met at
Speaker 1: a poetry slam in high school. We both fancied ourselves poets.
Speaker 1: Only one of us was I'll let you figure out
Speaker 1: which one, and then we didn't hang out much. He
Speaker 1: was four years younger than me. I went off to college,
Speaker 1: came back, and Raphael was running a recording studio in
Speaker 1: North Oakland. Some mutual friends were like playing our music
Speaker 1: for each other, and uh, and that was it. I
Speaker 1: went over to the to the studio. We'd like stayed
Speaker 1: up making songs. And I would say that studio session
Speaker 1: never ended, still going, uh together. What did you guys
Speaker 1: bond over in the arts? And and also I'm curious,
Speaker 1: what do you what did you differ over in the arts.
Speaker 1: For sure, bonded over music at first, but I think
Speaker 1: you know, we're of that multi hyphenite artist generation where
Speaker 1: like you know, you always do five other things and
Speaker 1: some bleeding over in the theater was easy for us,
Speaker 1: and poet was to a certain degree both of our
Speaker 1: bases um and you know, and and and then we
Speaker 1: were both educators too, and so that there are so many,
Speaker 1: so many touch points were similar, differ, What do you
Speaker 1: things differ? We have slightly different music tastes. I guess yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: also like Raphael has much more of an ear for
Speaker 1: what is popular than I. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like working with rapt in my ears is better? It
Speaker 1: just I care no, But I think you also know,
Speaker 1: like there's something about working on a song with rapping
Speaker 1: where like all of a sudden needs taps into whatever
Speaker 1: is I guys, see you right now and you don't
Speaker 1: even know how he did it, Like he's just wired
Speaker 1: that way, like he can he feels like what the
Speaker 1: pulse of music is on And I am not wired
Speaker 1: that way at all. So like I does an immersion thing,
Speaker 1: And are you more immersed in that than maybe? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't argue that I am more immersed that argument,
Speaker 1: but I but what I what I will say is
Speaker 1: different about the way we listen to music. Is I
Speaker 1: pick four albums and that's all I listened to for
Speaker 1: six months with with no interruption like when I'm at digs.
Speaker 1: The The identifier of Jigs's car was chaos and just
Speaker 1: a trunk follow c D finders of CDs because things.
Speaker 1: Every Tuesday would go to a Biba or tower wherever
Speaker 1: it was that that had all the newest releases of
Speaker 1: music and just buy everything that just came out, and
Speaker 1: then he would listen to everything one time through, and
Speaker 1: then I would get in his car, and whatever made
Speaker 1: it from that first purchase to the binder I would
Speaker 1: hear and I would really just open the binders and
Speaker 1: go what's good, and him, sort of knowing my taste,
Speaker 1: would go, we should listen to this. You're probably not
Speaker 1: gonna like this with this diet. We should listen to this,
Speaker 1: you know, and it would either be that's the newest
Speaker 1: stuff or in there were also things that had stayed
Speaker 1: with things over the last ten fift twenty years of
Speaker 1: his last I'd also go like, what is this, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's like an old you know, Bootsey Collins records. We're
Speaker 1: gonna listen to that whole thing on this drive, you know,
Speaker 1: and some my you know, I for a lot of
Speaker 1: people had a very wide spread of of of taste
Speaker 1: of music. But in relation to Di I mean, Diggs
Speaker 1: listens to literally everything, um and so you know that
Speaker 1: that was sort of the the the obsessive difference me.
Speaker 1: He gets obsessed over albums too, and listens to him NonStop.
Speaker 1: I think I latch onto certain things that are like
Speaker 1: I know he hasn't listened to the Drake album five times.
Speaker 1: I haven't. I didn't. I didn't suffer through that thing
Speaker 1: one time, shots fired, I stared through it twice the
Speaker 1: third time talked me into it, yes, yes to like,
Speaker 1: has it even more of a pulse on it than
Speaker 1: I do? Was like the Drake albums joke. I was like,
Speaker 1: are you sure? She was like, yeah, let's do it again.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, she's wrong. But there's some great
Speaker 1: beats on it. I think there's who needs that many?
Speaker 1: Why do you have songs? Well, here's the thing that's different.
Speaker 1: I agree that it's too long, but I think that
Speaker 1: I don't know that's a Drake things so much as
Speaker 1: I like, we're just talking about this earlier, is like
Speaker 1: that what we loved about what Kanye and Push It
Speaker 1: and Ketty just did. Whether or not you like the music,
Speaker 1: is there just further, like people are further cementing this
Speaker 1: idea that like seven or eight songs is an album,
Speaker 1: like that was an acceptable release. You can call it
Speaker 1: what you want to, but again, categories really cares, but
Speaker 1: an eight track releases like is the bar now, It's no,
Speaker 1: it's not even a mixtape. It's it's just a thing
Speaker 1: that is an acceptable release. It's a complete thought. And
Speaker 1: this is a problem with Dreg's album is that it's like,
Speaker 1: so it is one's there's only one thought on that
Speaker 1: moutherfucker and it lasts four hours. It feels like when
Speaker 1: there's a moment where Frank Oshan released a bunch of
Speaker 1: songs right after a Channel Orange it was like forty
Speaker 1: records and they're dope, but like I never got through
Speaker 1: all forties, so so daunting I did, but those were
Speaker 1: different interesting like the difference, but we're not because I
Speaker 1: was the hell of R and B that Digs. Probably
Speaker 1: I love R and B in a way that like
Speaker 1: Digs enjoys R and B, but not give an example
Speaker 1: of that of like like I enjoyed James Blake and
Speaker 1: Diggs hates him. Yeah, I don't care, you know, but
Speaker 1: I think I think that there's things about like top
Speaker 1: like top line artists and melody artists. That is where
Speaker 1: Diggs care slightly less ends when really good at things
Speaker 1: like writing hooks at things like you know that isn't
Speaker 1: best an incredibly important skill that I'm aware that I
Speaker 1: don't have. But I know when I'm writing a song,
Speaker 1: depending on the lyrical content and the kind of top line,
Speaker 1: whether or not Diggs is gonna be like dope or
Speaker 1: like man. That's what we just did the other day.
Speaker 1: We're like, I wrote it and went, I know exactly
Speaker 1: where this is gonna say. It's gonna be like this
Speaker 1: is really good. It's very radioly is it on brand
Speaker 1: for me? Partial credit? And I know that, And I
Speaker 1: know what that means. You know, was local music? You
Speaker 1: know the Bay Areas scene important to you coming up?
Speaker 1: I mean, remember is the only the last interview we
Speaker 1: just did, they asked us, they asked us one our
Speaker 1: top five or and we we all we know the
Speaker 1: answer to that. The first inst that as always the
Speaker 1: forty is our favorite rapper. When you're the favorite rapper
Speaker 1: with somebody else and you as are hip hop head's
Speaker 1: like you're probably good for everything, like for all the
Speaker 1: same reasons that that's your favorite rapper is the reason
Speaker 1: why you can be best friends, right, that's our that's
Speaker 1: our step brothers moment. Support your favorite rubber yesterday, which
Speaker 1: does become bad, which is easy in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: if you both have you know, if you both love
Speaker 1: E forty, Like, there's so much there that that means
Speaker 1: the language you love, like you love the specificity of
Speaker 1: your area, you love, you love this innovative slang culture.
Speaker 1: You love. You love sort of aspects of pimp culture
Speaker 1: and hustle culture. That's like super fascinating to a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Um And and you have a certain sense
Speaker 1: of feeling like an underappreciated person because that's what the
Speaker 1: forty is to a certain degree, is like an artist
Speaker 1: who has done so much for hip hop and so
Speaker 1: rarely does he get any credit for it. And like
Speaker 1: that isn't that is not just an E forty specific thing.
Speaker 1: That's a bay Area specific thing of culture. It's a
Speaker 1: big part of what I wanted to make this movie
Speaker 1: is to be like, you don't realize how much impact
Speaker 1: the Bay Area has had ont on culture across the
Speaker 1: country and around the world. Um And not that the
Speaker 1: film is not addressing that, but it's just showing how
Speaker 1: beautiful the Bay Area is, um and and and in
Speaker 1: that we curated all this music that accompanies it and
Speaker 1: all this slang that accompanies it as sort of a
Speaker 1: nod to that feeling. Were you big into the soul
Speaker 1: side screw at all? I was a huge Yeah. And
Speaker 1: that's questions right there, that's a big question. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: answered I was for sure. I used to know who
Speaker 1: that is, Yeah, Quantum, all those kids they became. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also like black, it was black, Yeah, I used to
Speaker 1: I used to see gifted gab and he was also
Speaker 1: a music and using a me. But every Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: this is all growing up, I would see him there
Speaker 1: every Tuesday and never once spoke when I was a
Speaker 1: way too star strike to talk to him, becau is
Speaker 1: my understand is my limited understanding of the world at
Speaker 1: that time, Like that to me was a major star,
Speaker 1: I know, how like not true it really that what
Speaker 1: you did say, But to me, like from the Bay
Speaker 1: like that was that dude was to me a major,
Speaker 1: major star and I could never talk to him. And
Speaker 1: then we ended up when I was in collegewen a
Speaker 1: backstage at a concert together something I finally like told
Speaker 1: him that story that I just told you. It was
Speaker 1: a great moment for me. Always saw Lyrics Born at him.
Speaker 1: What's that what's that cafe that everybody goes to him
Speaker 1: Berkeley on Melvia and University that's opened to emulate and
Speaker 1: let's see. No, but I would be there doing like
Speaker 1: laney college homework, and he would be there, like also
Speaker 1: working on something. But I can't imagine. Well, maybe Lyrics
Speaker 1: Born does write lyrics out of cocol That's possible. A
Speaker 1: little little cheesecake and a latte and knock got these
Speaker 1: bars very possible. Sure, this is really inside baby. I'm
Speaker 1: getting to the Weeds on music. But I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to want them that first, that first album man
Speaker 1: that self out or no, what was it called? I said,
Speaker 1: I talked to the dude to rant it. He said,
Speaker 1: we weren't quite there yet. Fuck you you know you
Speaker 1: know Macbee Dog. Yeah, he had a song on one
Speaker 1: of their like the Soul Sides collective collection things called
Speaker 1: hot Breath that's like, yeah, it's like a minute and
Speaker 1: a half. It's like one verse in a course or
Speaker 1: if it was like a totally unfinit or felt like
Speaker 1: just like but it had the greatest line I ever heard,
Speaker 1: which is no longer relevant, but at the time it
Speaker 1: was just this. You went out like Mark Hamill in
Speaker 1: the line just but you know, Mark Camill's back obviously
Speaker 1: doing great. He's the boys of the Drum for a
Speaker 1: long time. Much money that had. Yeah, the same thing
Speaker 1: happened last week. Like I said, I had Boots Riley
Speaker 1: on and we were talking and about music and uh,
Speaker 1: you know Oakland's having a moment obviously, I mean the
Speaker 1: Coup Booths told them was very important to me. Pam
Speaker 1: the functor is also you know rest in Peace, the
Speaker 1: DJ for the Coup, who was just like the party
Speaker 1: DJ growing up. And then you know, I went to
Speaker 1: tons of parties that she DJ, and would also watch
Speaker 1: her like do the tournaments and she would like scratch
Speaker 1: with her tits. It was amazing. And uh and then
Speaker 1: I saw her at um at a at a little
Speaker 1: club in this when I'm doing Hamilton's on Broadway and
Speaker 1: we get we get a call and we get an
Speaker 1: email at intermission that Prince wants to wants us all
Speaker 1: that wants to do a show for us. After the show.
Speaker 1: I wants us all to come to this club Prince
Speaker 1: wants to perform for us, and we were like, what,
Speaker 1: like the whole cast goes and Pam had been Princess
Speaker 1: DJ for the last bunch of years. So I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there in in this concert about to watch Is perform
Speaker 1: and Pam is Zjing Forum and the whole show was Pam,
Speaker 1: Prince and one dancer. That was the whole show. And
Speaker 1: like it good so to eat saying so to be,
Speaker 1: like so to be in this room. And this is
Speaker 1: thirty one days before Prince died. So I'm in this
Speaker 1: room with a woman who I had I grew up watching,
Speaker 1: who is performing, who's been touring with Prince now for
Speaker 1: the last bunch of years as like Prince's Club Date DJ.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just an unbelievable experience for me. Well,
Speaker 1: like I said, Oakland's having this big moment in film
Speaker 1: with with Boots's film, with your film, you know, with
Speaker 1: the stuff Ryan Coogler has been putting together. I think
Speaker 1: Ryan takes the kick on that one. We'll well, well,
Speaker 1: we'll take our our part of that. Sure, you guys
Speaker 1: have made a very potent kind of representation of of
Speaker 1: where you grew up. But I'm why do you think
Speaker 1: Oakland is popping right now like that, Well, Oakland is
Speaker 1: popping for non film reasons. Oukland is popping because the
Speaker 1: real estate is cheaper in San Francisco, that's why. Um,
Speaker 1: But in the arts, why why do you think? I mean,
Speaker 1: I have something to do with it? Maybe, I mean
Speaker 1: your film is all about that. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think it does. I think I think we've I think
Speaker 1: Boots has been working on his film down here as
Speaker 1: long as us. People have been trying to make movies
Speaker 1: about the Bay Area for a long time. Licks tried
Speaker 1: to do it, Kicks tried to do it, and they
Speaker 1: did do it. I mean, um, you know Fruville was
Speaker 1: early on. It's it's not like filmmakers haven't been trying
Speaker 1: to tell those stories for a while. Like I also
Speaker 1: feel like if if Boots movie came out next year,
Speaker 1: in our movie came out this year, we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: having this conversation about a moment. It doesn't take much
Speaker 1: for it to feel like a moment. It really just
Speaker 1: takes like two Um. But but I think there's a
Speaker 1: generation of people that grew up in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: who felt like the barrier got no shine or got
Speaker 1: no attention for the narrative that it that it had
Speaker 1: have been telling. And again how much game it's giving
Speaker 1: so many other places. I mean, there are you know,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of shows that have passed through television
Speaker 1: in the last ten years that have claimed to be
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. I mean full houses in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. It's like there's not been barrier content. It
Speaker 1: just hasn't been made by Bay Area people. You know,
Speaker 1: A Parenthood was supposed to be based in Berkeley. That
Speaker 1: was absurd and nothing about that show. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Berkeley. That's not Berkeley. I don't know any of
Speaker 1: those people. I remember he was at a bar once,
Speaker 1: a tequila bar and San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley. I
Speaker 1: was like, fuck you, what do you got the album
Speaker 1: Tross you liar? People would not like you. And they're
Speaker 1: in a suit. He was like in a suit on
Speaker 1: a pay phone, was like, who wrote this? You liar? Liar?
Speaker 1: Um you know and that, But that's the same. There's
Speaker 1: been so many moments where people come in and they
Speaker 1: and they do their best to like pay tribute to it.
Speaker 1: Like I it was like when Tiger came and fell
Speaker 1: in love with the Bay Area and got I fell
Speaker 1: in love with bay Area production, and then his next
Speaker 1: four albums all sounded like bay Area music. We knew
Speaker 1: that he got it from there, and he said it too,
Speaker 1: but that was as far as it went. And then
Speaker 1: everyone just associated that with l A's new sound. But
Speaker 1: we all knew and Tiger new and and didn't try
Speaker 1: to hide it, said that that was the time in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area. Wayne and Drake both came to the
Speaker 1: Bay Area and fell in love with bay Area music
Speaker 1: and took that sound. And Drake says it in lyrics
Speaker 1: all the time. It just goes over people's head because
Speaker 1: a mat Orate reference is so specific that you don't
Speaker 1: get what he's saying when he says rest in peak
Speaker 1: matchro we will do rest in peace match. Everyone do
Speaker 1: it for the bet. That's huge for us. You know
Speaker 1: what that means. Um, It's been sourced material for so long,
Speaker 1: but the people who get to them put it on
Speaker 1: the main stage haven't really been bay Area people who
Speaker 1: feel that obligation to tell the whole story. There was
Speaker 1: a period like when we were coming up to where
Speaker 1: the Warriors fell like training camp for great players, and
Speaker 1: they would go through it like we all we have
Speaker 1: this chip on our shoulders in the bay. Like you know,
Speaker 1: like the great great players would come through the Warriors
Speaker 1: and then and then leave and and go somewhere else
Speaker 1: and become great. You know what. We would sort of
Speaker 1: watch them becoming great in time for them to leave.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, you're right, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that point to this moment right now, like to champs,
Speaker 1: like three championships and like you know, like there's a
Speaker 1: boiling for so long. Yeah, So but I think, um,
Speaker 1: we there is in a community that is changing so
Speaker 1: rapidly and where context is always being lost and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. I think a lot of artists from
Speaker 1: their field it's need to tell these stories in particular
Speaker 1: right now. You know, maybe where we had fantasies about
Speaker 1: it before, it feels urgent right now because if we
Speaker 1: don't get these stories out now will be gone and
Speaker 1: being recognized. It feels like just a preserving an endangered
Speaker 1: species or something. You know, you have to Internet generation.
Speaker 1: It's a reflection, you know, like access is different now,
Speaker 1: Like you know, back in the Daily it was like
Speaker 1: quantum in these places were the only places that indie
Speaker 1: artists could get the megaphone right. And then came the
Speaker 1: digital wave, right that allowed people to build up enough
Speaker 1: cloud to even make a movie or you know, or
Speaker 1: a visual album or not you know, an album on
Speaker 1: their own. Like technology is caught up in a way
Speaker 1: where the labels and the studios are not necessarily dictating
Speaker 1: where things are getting made in the same way anymore. Um,
Speaker 1: we always talk about the Bay Areas are our Whoville, right,
Speaker 1: It's this It's a small little thing that if you
Speaker 1: if you look closely at it, as all this culture
Speaker 1: and all these big characters and big voices and interesting stories. Um,
Speaker 1: and when you live there and you see one of
Speaker 1: those things become real size for everyone else, Uh, it's inspiring. Right.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't take much, you know, the Warrior, you know,
Speaker 1: even just Steph Curry coming and becoming this massive star
Speaker 1: and these other players becoming these celebrities and repping the
Speaker 1: town and like having a parade down the middle of
Speaker 1: the town, like makes your city feel a little bit
Speaker 1: bigger and more important. Right, So you're you're suddenly your
Speaker 1: context is more relatable. And the more relatable your context is,
Speaker 1: the more you can do with it. Right. So the
Speaker 1: first time we saw real Bay Area ship happening around
Speaker 1: because even when the high fee movement had it's like
Speaker 1: a quick little burst into the national conversation. It was like,
Speaker 1: at least we had a reference point and go someone
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah, y'all are on the Hi Fi ship.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like cool. You don't really know what
Speaker 1: that means, but at least we have we can start
Speaker 1: somewhere exactly. You know, well, let's drill down into the movie.
Speaker 1: You've been working on this for a decade. You wanted
Speaker 1: to tell a story just looking at the gentrification that
Speaker 1: was happening in Oakland, and as you were just saying,
Speaker 1: to be about just the catch, catching it before it's
Speaker 1: gone essentially, But talk to me about what what did
Speaker 1: you when you sat down and you first wanted to
Speaker 1: write a story that took place in Oakland that represented
Speaker 1: where you come from. What was the colonel? What was
Speaker 1: the central thesis? We want to say this, Well, the
Speaker 1: I mean, the the real thesis was created by our
Speaker 1: producer Jess Carter, who found Raphael via a YouTube wormhole
Speaker 1: looking at his poetry staffing and approached him and said,
Speaker 1: do you think some of the way that you write
Speaker 1: verse would translate into a film UM, and later when
Speaker 1: I was sort of brought into the fold, UM, we
Speaker 1: you know, that was really the lynchpan was about verse,
Speaker 1: about how do we use verse, and then about us
Speaker 1: wanting to tell a Bay Area story. We knew that
Speaker 1: that was the case very shortly but around that same time,
Speaker 1: I don't know before after, but Oscar Grant was was
Speaker 1: killed at Proof of our Stations. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: in order to tell in a Bay Area story, that's
Speaker 1: the story we're talking about, you know, we have to that.
Speaker 1: That was just in the air, and it was you know,
Speaker 1: Oscar's face was everywhere. There were protests and riots and
Speaker 1: all these things like we had to, So that sort
Speaker 1: of became We knew that was going to be an
Speaker 1: instigating incident in the film. UM. We knew it would
Speaker 1: star us, We knew it would be inverse. We knew
Speaker 1: it would be about Oakland, and that was that was
Speaker 1: the I don't even know that gentrification was like a
Speaker 1: word we were throwing around as a major theme. It
Speaker 1: was just it was a convention that we could use two. Originally,
Speaker 1: the idea of them as movers was the way to
Speaker 1: get around to all these different points of view in
Speaker 1: the city. Um, what happened is over ten years, it
Speaker 1: went from like there's some influx of people, so there's
Speaker 1: a massive takeover of people not from the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: and so the urgency raised for us about this time
Speaker 1: capsule at this moment. But I don't know that. In
Speaker 1: the beginning, We're like, when you want to talk about gentrification,
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about we want to show a
Speaker 1: bunch of different neighborhoods. So that's why we made the overs,
Speaker 1: so that they could go from place to place and
Speaker 1: we could show as much of we could show off
Speaker 1: as much of cut as possible. Yeah, Um, themes that
Speaker 1: developed as you started writing. I mean, to me, a
Speaker 1: theme that kind of pops out is just about identity
Speaker 1: and who you are. And I think about the scene
Speaker 1: with you at the party and that you don't have
Speaker 1: to act ghetto to hang out here, and that's a
Speaker 1: that's a layered moment at least. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: challenge to who he feels like he is, and uh,
Speaker 1: your reaction is so potent in that moment. And I
Speaker 1: just you know, how did these themes start to develop?
Speaker 1: I guess on the page. I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: were just trying to tell these stories honestly, So we
Speaker 1: never really thought of it in terms of like an
Speaker 1: issue we need we did, So there was never a
Speaker 1: moment we were like, you got to really dial in
Speaker 1: on identity here, you know. Um, it was just about
Speaker 1: who is Miles, And it was about putting Colin and
Speaker 1: Miles in this in this particular situation. You know, the countdown,
Speaker 1: the probation countdown was an interesting point right when we
Speaker 1: sort of settled on that as a as a clock
Speaker 1: by which we would be able to follow the film.
Speaker 1: That ramps things in an interesting way. So it was
Speaker 1: always about making choices for these characters that end up
Speaker 1: forcing their hands or forcing their you know, it ramps
Speaker 1: up situations, um, and so it provides a layer of
Speaker 1: tension to everything again is right exactly exactly and so
Speaker 1: and I think Miles in response has to you know,
Speaker 1: their lives are are inseparable, so they can't you know,
Speaker 1: so Miles has to respond to the same clock, right,
Speaker 1: And that's the that's one of the big problems. But
Speaker 1: that's what's sort of coming to a head in that scene, right,
Speaker 1: It's like Miles hasn't yet understood that his that Conan's
Speaker 1: life is so drastically different now than the let you know,
Speaker 1: and Miles isn't worried about it in that scene. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he's upset about his own how displaced he feels
Speaker 1: even in this party, you know, yeah, yeah, that question
Speaker 1: of you don't have to act ghetto to hang out here,
Speaker 1: it's so layered. What do you mean by ghetto? Do
Speaker 1: you think that he thinks that he's acting ghetto and
Speaker 1: that's we used it? Do you think that's what ghetto is?
Speaker 1: The way that he's acting. Who does Miles think Terry
Speaker 1: is in that moment, Like, does he think he's a local?
Speaker 1: Does he think he's a preppy local from a nicer
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Oakland? Does he think, you know, there's just
Speaker 1: somebody who got him sucked up and he needs to
Speaker 1: put him in his place, which is probably done a
Speaker 1: hundred times through his life as somebody, you know, a
Speaker 1: streak can come out to him, never seen Miles before
Speaker 1: and say, like, you know, give him, give him any
Speaker 1: sort of sense that he doesn't belong there. And Miles
Speaker 1: has belonged there his whole life and grew up there
Speaker 1: and has to know Miles has probably had to claim
Speaker 1: his space with his peers more than any one of
Speaker 1: his peers has ever had to you know, and to
Speaker 1: him him being a little bit of a powder kig
Speaker 1: in that moment, like to him, it's totally justice of
Speaker 1: yourself going into that character. I mean, sure, we're actors.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course there is, um My, a lot
Speaker 1: of my context growing up was growing up around black
Speaker 1: and brown people. So yes, that that that assertion of
Speaker 1: of ownership of space. Absolutely, Um, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I've ever had that moment happened. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I don't because I'm usually around people that know my
Speaker 1: context and the level of gentrification that Oakland is at
Speaker 1: now it's so far beyond it whereas when we lived there. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, yeah, I can't. I actually less bothered
Speaker 1: by that moment that I am. The moment right before
Speaker 1: that that they experially has with Sid don't reveal what
Speaker 1: happens when he's walking in and and that I that
Speaker 1: I have experienced more when somebody, when somebody is dressing
Speaker 1: up as you a little bit, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: weird feeling. I feel that way. Yeah, I feel that
Speaker 1: way sometimes when I when I feel like somebody's and
Speaker 1: is and and anybody can relate to this, I guess,
Speaker 1: and you feel like somebody's in some to some degree
Speaker 1: appropriating your experience and that's not authentic to you. There,
Speaker 1: Absolutely the project goes places it very much as you
Speaker 1: were talking about with the verse at dovetails of what
Speaker 1: you guys have been doing with theater and theater and
Speaker 1: verse and the bars workshops and things like this. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess I just want to talk about that. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's a unique way to tell stories that should
Speaker 1: you'd think it would be more developed even that it
Speaker 1: is now already. I mean, it's it's kind of something
Speaker 1: that you guys have planted your flag in and I
Speaker 1: just want you to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think you know the earliest examples of theater and verse, right,
Speaker 1: Versus has been around as a as a mode of
Speaker 1: performance and storytelling for a long time, and we came
Speaker 1: up through this poetry scene in which you you learn
Speaker 1: verse skills in order to force people to listen to you,
Speaker 1: or that's why you teach kids poems because nobody cares
Speaker 1: that they have to say, so you make it sound
Speaker 1: pretty and then everyone will listen to you. But there's
Speaker 1: technique to that too. You you know, you rhyme the
Speaker 1: and this is the same technique that's happening in in
Speaker 1: first driven theater too. But you you know, if you
Speaker 1: the phrase that you rhyme, people are gonna hear the rhyme.
Speaker 1: So so you need someone's ear to pay attention to
Speaker 1: something that is a that's a technique, um, you know,
Speaker 1: stressed and unstressed syllables. It's another These are all just
Speaker 1: techniques right, um, that have been around for a long
Speaker 1: time contemporary yeah, and and even still have been happening
Speaker 1: in you know, in the performance poetry wrote and in
Speaker 1: hip hop. Certainly, like all of these techniques were used
Speaker 1: all the time. We don't see it in film a
Speaker 1: lot in this way, and that we didn't I wanted
Speaker 1: to feel like a musical and we didn't want them
Speaker 1: to feel like We didn't want to make con and
Speaker 1: miles aspiring musicians. This wasn't a story about how too
Speaker 1: like budding rappers discovered their rap voice, you know, like
Speaker 1: does this is a practical and fun tool used in
Speaker 1: the way we sort of grew up using. I mean
Speaker 1: that and that's another very Bay Area thing. Language is
Speaker 1: so important to us there and it is. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a conversation where Miles is engaging in
Speaker 1: a sale with somebody on the street and it's all
Speaker 1: in like really thick slang. That's real slang, like those
Speaker 1: those aren't joke words. That's that's real Bay talk. And
Speaker 1: conversations like that happened. And in those conversations you're trying
Speaker 1: to one up each other in how fly your your speeches,
Speaker 1: and that's that's sort of a cultural norm that we
Speaker 1: grew up around. So it's another thing we sort of
Speaker 1: wanted to show off about the Bay Area. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so using you know, using verse in all of the
Speaker 1: ways versus been used historically, but then just burying it
Speaker 1: a little bit, being a little making it a little
Speaker 1: less about this is a moment in verse and really
Speaker 1: just using it as part of the way that people
Speaker 1: talk in order to justify where we get to at
Speaker 1: the end, which is essentially this is a moment in
Speaker 1: verse because it has to be you know, Um but
Speaker 1: that so that that was what we were trying to
Speaker 1: do with the film, you know, from a from a
Speaker 1: technical standpoint, and I think, um, and I don't know
Speaker 1: it is. It has proven to be a useful tool
Speaker 1: for us and for so many of the kinds of
Speaker 1: artists we grew. You know, we're both mentored by a
Speaker 1: guy named Mark Bamuty Joseph who's um an incredible playwright
Speaker 1: and performance artist and poet and dancer, and um his
Speaker 1: work is always in verse two and it functions the
Speaker 1: same way it functions. It is practical the verses for
Speaker 1: a purpose. It's not it's not just because it's pretty.
Speaker 1: It makes you listen differently, and so we imagine it
Speaker 1: can be a useful tool in film as well. It
Speaker 1: has already proven to be in things that are more music.
Speaker 1: At least for me, we felt like the right people
Speaker 1: to do it. I mean, we've done we've done the
Speaker 1: work in the in the medium, and I think when
Speaker 1: it's been a decade thinking about how to how to
Speaker 1: do it in a way that felt natural. And there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's other films that have involved poetic verse
Speaker 1: and other capacities, and there's theater that has that has
Speaker 1: done it in recent years, and it's it's it's been
Speaker 1: in solo works for a long time. A lot of
Speaker 1: poets have gone on to do solo performance works that
Speaker 1: are heavily in verse, uh, and it just felt like
Speaker 1: new ground. I mean anything, anytime you have a unique
Speaker 1: take on a medium, you go for it. Right. That's
Speaker 1: there is If there's any sort of interesting moment happening
Speaker 1: with Oakland film, it's that both ours and Boots Riley's
Speaker 1: film take a hard swing at a at a slightly
Speaker 1: new convention for how you approach film. I mean that
Speaker 1: the level of absurdist comedy that's in Boots is sort
Speaker 1: of unmatched by anything I've seen in recent years. And
Speaker 1: I think to the same degree, like I haven't seen
Speaker 1: anything take a swing for verse, verse driven work in
Speaker 1: a film like like ours, And I think that's it.
Speaker 1: Being innovative in the medium is something that we have
Speaker 1: a lot of pride in in the Bay Area. Right
Speaker 1: We are in innovating language, We're innovating cadence like that's
Speaker 1: huge in the music, and so I think it is
Speaker 1: inherently there in the spirit of us as artists being
Speaker 1: from the Bay Area, to try to to try to
Speaker 1: flip it, to give it like a you know, to
Speaker 1: dial it up another notch. If we're gonna do it,
Speaker 1: let's dial it up. Was that specific to this project.
Speaker 1: Is it something that you'd want to do in other films?
Speaker 1: Keep keep exploring this idea or sure, but not not
Speaker 1: as a through line. Yeah, I mean yes, I'm sure
Speaker 1: we will do much more work in film in versus again,
Speaker 1: but it will be different. We did it this way,
Speaker 1: so we'll figure out any way. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: like our aesthetic for everything they do, but I think
Speaker 1: it in you know, verse work will always inform an
Speaker 1: aspect of the film. Sometimes I just be the score,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you use how do you use music?
Speaker 1: And I mean versus so much about timing and tone
Speaker 1: and and uh giving a scene the energy that it
Speaker 1: needs to do the thing that it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So like any convention in film or in theater, it
Speaker 1: works the same as a really great lighting queue or
Speaker 1: a really great you know, music queue, Like that's it's
Speaker 1: a thing to make you focus your attention and look
Speaker 1: at at the spot we want you to look at. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna ask you, Raphael, if you are
Speaker 1: you interested in pursuing acting further beyond this? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't actually sure. I mean, this is this
Speaker 1: is your first feature, right, just starting? Yeah, it's both
Speaker 1: of our first features to start, is that your first
Speaker 1: you've been doing the TV and started like that, but whatever.
Speaker 1: But at the point being I can see the VID
Speaker 1: is going in that direction. I wasn't sure if that
Speaker 1: was what you were interested. Yeah, yeah, everyone's got to
Speaker 1: have a first one. Absolutely want Yeah, it's sucking stupid
Speaker 1: to quit right now. I don't know if you wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to you know, or stick with your
Speaker 1: spoken words stuff that you're you've been entrenched in for
Speaker 1: so long. And if that's like, I don't think you
Speaker 1: pick man, I don't. I don't think there's I don't
Speaker 1: you know that'd be like, well, now that David has
Speaker 1: done his first movie, I guess he's gonna quit music,
Speaker 1: Like of course not, you know, but now now we
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to do it in a different on
Speaker 1: a different level and a different capacity, like we're musicians
Speaker 1: where writers Dick now are going to write more movies,
Speaker 1: We're going to produce more movies and hopefully some TV
Speaker 1: shows and whatever. You know, there's a door open or
Speaker 1: not a not a not a not a narrow it
Speaker 1: not gave my story and now not not at all,
Speaker 1: And then uh, we're you know, there's if anything, we
Speaker 1: just we just came into a hallway with infinitely more
Speaker 1: doors than we ever had before. And I think it
Speaker 1: is in our nature as multi hyphenit artists to like
Speaker 1: multi hyphenate a few more time, the first time that's
Speaker 1: been used as a verb. I'm pretty sure everybody should
Speaker 1: check that. Blind Spotting is the movie I loved. It's
Speaker 1: one of the best movies I've seen all year. It
Speaker 1: opens lot and white on the twenty seven. Go see it.
Speaker 1: Blind Spotting. The v Digs and Ruffiel Kaso, thank you
Speaker 1: for having on my show released for havings. Thank you
Speaker 1: for all Chancell