Speaker 1: Hey, wait, how is it I always forget? Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I got it. Hey, Hey, hey, hey, hey we're back.
Speaker 1: We're black. We're extra black today, We're brown. Ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited today because we got some extra blackness
Speaker 1: in the stew. You know, I like to say the
Speaker 1: stew because it makes me feel young, and so we
Speaker 1: cannot wait to introduce you to I guess today, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let manager take over first of all, Mandy,
Speaker 1: how are you girl? Because your girls are popping?
Speaker 2: Are they?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Thank you? You know I how to get it together.
Speaker 2: I just woke up from my now twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 2: I'm not even gonna try to front mister Cherry. I
Speaker 2: am very pregnant and I take a lot of nabs now,
Speaker 2: but I'm so so excited to have you with us today.
Speaker 2: Ba fam. This is an opportunity that we have been
Speaker 2: waiting for for a while. Not gonna lie. As soon
Speaker 2: as we started partnering with Dove back in February and
Speaker 2: I saw that this gentleman was a part of the
Speaker 2: Dove hair Care Influencer hair Care Partnership group, I was like,
Speaker 2: who can we get Matthew Cherry on the podcast. I mean, like,
Speaker 2: what's he up to? What's his contract? Say? Does he
Speaker 2: need to do? Like some podcast episodes. I'm so excited
Speaker 2: to have Matthew here. So if y'all are not familiar
Speaker 2: with Matthew Cherry, let me remind y'all this man used
Speaker 2: to be an NFL player. Don't ask me what position.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was very impressive. But for several years
Speaker 2: you were in the NFL and then pivoted into Hollywood. Right,
Speaker 2: So a little like Kobe Bryant, Flavor here pivoted into Hollywood,
Speaker 2: worked as a production assistant, so brought him all the
Speaker 2: way back. That's basically like being an intern, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: you really like paid your dues in the early days.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: And then less than a decade later, was on stage
Speaker 2: at the Oscars accepting an award for his beautiful, beautiful
Speaker 2: film called Hair Love, which if you haven't seen it
Speaker 2: having got the book, don't follow him on insta been
Speaker 2: living under a hole. You have to have to check
Speaker 2: it out. It is so sweet. It really pictures a
Speaker 2: father and his daughter, you know, experiencing what it's like
Speaker 2: to embrace her hair texture and to make her feel
Speaker 2: beautiful and it was just lovely. But since then, Matthew
Speaker 2: has been on a tear. I mean, you've directed so
Speaker 2: many episodes of my favorite shows on TV. I'm Playing It,
Speaker 2: Cool Abbot, Elementary, Blackish, The Wonder Years, plus the reboot
Speaker 2: of bel Air Saved by the Bell and Moore. You
Speaker 2: have been an Academy Sorry, You've been an executive producer
Speaker 2: for the film Black Clansman with Spike Lee, and you've
Speaker 2: also worked as an executive at Jordan Peele's production company,
Speaker 2: Monkey Pop Productions. So we are so so excited to
Speaker 2: have you at the on the show. Matthew Cherry, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: No, thanks for having me excited to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say, like, everything he's done has
Speaker 1: been super black, which I love. I'm like, damn, we
Speaker 1: thought we were black over here. Everything is black black,
Speaker 1: the black black, black out of black black black.
Speaker 2: So go ahead skip the part where he directed Michelle
Speaker 2: Williams one of her first music videos right when she
Speaker 2: went solo.
Speaker 5: It was it was a little later on, but yeah,
Speaker 5: I did say yes for her being Kelly.
Speaker 2: Yes, And you've worked with Jasmine Sullivan, Chloe cally Leyla Hathaway. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so everything not bad, But the career pivot from the
Speaker 2: NFL into entertainment was that planned? Did you know you
Speaker 2: wanted to be a filmmaker.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I am. It's interesting like growing up
Speaker 5: having the dream of trying to play professional sports. Like
Speaker 5: a lot of times you will meet a lot of
Speaker 5: guys who that's all they have when you ask them
Speaker 5: what they want to do. I only have a plan a,
Speaker 5: you know, I want to make it to the league.
Speaker 5: And for me, I don't know. I always had other interests,
Speaker 5: you know. I was always into entertainment. I'm from Chicago,
Speaker 5: so you know, the Midwest, at least back in the day,
Speaker 5: didn't have like this thriving film industry. It kind of
Speaker 5: has now, like a lot of cities now have it,
Speaker 5: like Atlanta and North Carolina, et cetera. And I don't know,
Speaker 5: I just didn't know exactly what it was going to be,
Speaker 5: but I knew I had interest in it, you know.
Speaker 5: I was part of like the radio club in high school.
Speaker 5: I made her a radio TV broadcasts and media production.
Speaker 5: I interned at a lot of radio stations when I
Speaker 5: was in college. So ian z Zak and Cleveland, and
Speaker 5: so I don't know. I thought it was going to
Speaker 5: be a little bit more on the music side or
Speaker 5: the radio side. But then you know, it was lucky
Speaker 5: enough to make it to the league as an underacted
Speaker 5: free agent and just kind of bounced around a lot.
Speaker 5: And I knew really early on in my rookie year, like,
Speaker 5: all right, you know, I may this may not work
Speaker 5: out for me in the same way that works out
Speaker 5: with a lot of people, because you know, it's less
Speaker 5: about ability. A lot of it is just like kind
Speaker 5: of right place, right time. Some of it as politics,
Speaker 5: and you know a lot of guys have incredible ability,
Speaker 5: but for whatever reason, they end up on the wrong
Speaker 5: team and don't have like the ball rolling their quart
Speaker 5: or whatever. So you know, I didn't want to be
Speaker 5: one of those guys that was like ten years and
Speaker 5: I'm like playing you know, some overseas league and you know,
Speaker 5: just making like minimum wage basically still get knocked upside
Speaker 5: the head. And I gave myself like a three year plan.
Speaker 5: I was like, if I can't like officially make it
Speaker 5: within this three years, I'm going to just retire early
Speaker 5: and I'm going to go to either LA or New York.
Speaker 5: And try to figure out this entertainment thing. And I
Speaker 5: was lucky to meet this woman who was a part
Speaker 5: of this nonprofit organization called street Lights and so if
Speaker 5: street Lights their website is street lights dot org and
Speaker 5: they're a nonprofit that helped men and women of color
Speaker 5: get jobs as production assistants, mostly in commercials and music videos,
Speaker 5: and now it's kind of expanded to a lot of
Speaker 5: other things. And that was just like my ticket. I
Speaker 5: knew I'd never been in la before, I didn't know
Speaker 5: anybody there, so I applied and you know, thankfully got in.
Speaker 5: And you know, like anything in this business, like you know,
Speaker 5: you do a good job on one job and then
Speaker 5: you know they'll go off to do other things and
Speaker 5: sometimes they'll bring you along, sometimes they won't, but you know,
Speaker 5: one became two and I was lucky enough. My first
Speaker 5: show I p eight on His Girlfriends with Marv Brockakeel
Speaker 5: on their eighth season, and you know, just seeing like
Speaker 5: Debbie allen See and Marv Brockakeel, you know, I was
Speaker 5: Prentice Penny, who you know was the show runner for
Speaker 5: insic Heure was there. Kenya Barris, you know, was there
Speaker 5: as the junior level writer. Lean Away, Me and lean
Speaker 5: Away were like, she was a writer's assistant. I was
Speaker 5: a PA. So it's just like one of those crazy
Speaker 5: things where just a lot of people kind of were
Speaker 5: in the same place at the same time because there
Speaker 5: were so few black shows at the time. You know,
Speaker 5: went from there and was.
Speaker 6: Able to like really see who is doing what and
Speaker 6: what jobs seemed like they were appealing, and you know,
Speaker 6: I saw you know, Debbie Allens in the director's chair
Speaker 6: and I was like, man, you know, I want to
Speaker 6: learn more about that, and just kind of took a
Speaker 6: little bit more of an interest in it, and you know,
Speaker 6: was able to kind of pivot and do some music
Speaker 6: videos and some short films and you know, here I
Speaker 6: am today.
Speaker 2: Wow, I feel like there needs to be a documentary
Speaker 2: on that final season of Girlfriends and everyone behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: Yes, it feels like it's pretty creaty to me. Karen
Speaker 5: just who was a show r ner star. I mean
Speaker 5: it's like literally like half the industry came off with
Speaker 5: a Girlfriends.
Speaker 2: Like for real, Wow, that's incredible. Like financially, how were
Speaker 2: you doing at that time? Because you're PAA, you come
Speaker 2: from an NFL, you're in LA like you're around all
Speaker 2: these successful people. Was it hard were you feeling like, damn,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of struggling, but I got to look like
Speaker 2: I'm making it.
Speaker 5: That was like low key the story of my life,
Speaker 5: like being in these jobs where like everybody else was
Speaker 5: making crazy money and I wasn't. So it's like being
Speaker 5: adjacent to the flyings but not really being able to
Speaker 5: get it for myself. So, like my rookie year in
Speaker 5: the league, I was on the practice squad and after
Speaker 5: taxes it was like thirty five thousand dollars. It was
Speaker 5: like eighty thousand base salary, but they taxed you at
Speaker 5: the highest rate and you got agent fees, et cetera.
Speaker 5: And you know, it was kind of similar money being
Speaker 5: a PA. Well, you know it's like back then, it's like,
Speaker 5: you know, you're just trying to make it. So you know,
Speaker 5: maybe you have a roommate, you know, your cars, you
Speaker 5: know kind of janky, so you know, you just kind
Speaker 5: of doing what you need to do to survive. But yeah,
Speaker 5: PA's really didn't make a lot of money. I think
Speaker 5: today they still kind of don't. Like, I know, if
Speaker 5: you do a commercial back then, at least you know,
Speaker 5: like two hundred dollars a day. But you know, there
Speaker 5: are ways that you could kind of stretch it out,
Speaker 5: like if you drove the production truck and you were
Speaker 5: able to like pick up the equipment that gives you
Speaker 5: an extra day and then you have to return and
Speaker 5: so you know, they were like little creative ways you
Speaker 5: can kind of hustle around it. But TV was always
Speaker 5: kind of the most consistent, just because like the commercial world,
Speaker 5: you got to like it was just a consistent hustle.
Speaker 5: Some months you may work fifteen days, another month you
Speaker 5: may only work three. So it was like very hustle driven,
Speaker 5: and I didn't really like that side of things, so
Speaker 5: I tried to get on the TV side and it
Speaker 5: was great. You know, like Girlfriends, you make it on
Speaker 5: in like August, and the show will go to like
Speaker 5: March or April, and you know, so it's like a
Speaker 5: pretty consistent gig.
Speaker 2: We need to share that link with anyone who's interested.
Speaker 2: Street Light, you.
Speaker 5: Said, street lights dot orget.
Speaker 2: I love that you went through a nonprofit and it
Speaker 2: wasn't like, yeah, I just meant someone on the bench,
Speaker 2: and you know, as a Hollywood producer, oh.
Speaker 5: No, no, yeah, yeah, some people have that story. I've
Speaker 5: always like taken the back door in a lot of ways,
Speaker 5: I feel like.
Speaker 1: So, you know, the question many asked about how was
Speaker 1: financially then is really poignant for me because I remember
Speaker 1: being broken then not being broke, but having a hard
Speaker 1: time reconciling that I wasn't broken any or like did
Speaker 1: you have that like that transition? How did that feel
Speaker 1: when you actually started to make money? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like financially secure now or are you still kind of
Speaker 1: like like because I'm still suffering from what I call
Speaker 1: post traumatic brokes, Like at any date, the people gonna
Speaker 1: come and get my things, you know, like have you
Speaker 1: suffered from that? And if so, how did you move
Speaker 1: past it? Or you know, how are you managing that now?
Speaker 5: You know? You know, for me, really directing television has
Speaker 5: been like the biggest blessing and it's just ironic because
Speaker 5: I started as a BA, you know, watching directors kind
Speaker 5: of do it, and that has really been I think
Speaker 5: the main thing for me that has kind of allowed
Speaker 5: me to feel financially secure. You know, I think for
Speaker 5: me being around it so much, you know, be that
Speaker 5: being a PA and you know, bring Tracy ls Ross
Speaker 5: from a trailer, you know, to the said or you know,
Speaker 5: like having to park their car or things like that.
Speaker 5: You know, I've always been around it, you know, even
Speaker 5: in the league, Like, man, you know you're pulling that
Speaker 5: parking lot. It's pretty crazy. So and I got like
Speaker 5: the worst car there. So you know, I've always been
Speaker 5: around it. And so I've always like felt like, Okay,
Speaker 5: when this happens, I think I know how I'm gonna move.
Speaker 5: So I don't not necessarily think I had that same
Speaker 5: syndrome that you spoke of, but you know, it is
Speaker 5: a transition. It's just like, you know, taxes is the
Speaker 5: biggest thing, you know, like you know, and what I do.
Speaker 5: You know, a lot of times you just get paid
Speaker 5: whatever the rate is. You just get paid that straight up,
Speaker 5: and they don't take taxes out. So you know, you
Speaker 5: work X amount of jobs, at the end of the year,
Speaker 5: you may end up with like this huge tax bill.
Speaker 5: So you have to be like very smart and strategic
Speaker 5: about like, all right, I'm gonna pay my stuff every
Speaker 5: quarterly just so that you know, at the end of
Speaker 5: the year and you know, I hit with like the
Speaker 5: six figure kind of tax thing or whatever. So it's
Speaker 5: like been things like that that you have to kind
Speaker 5: of be mindful of, you know, getting your LLC set
Speaker 5: up and you know, making sure you have them like
Speaker 5: the right right offs. Yeah, just just things like that
Speaker 5: has been kind of new in that way, and you
Speaker 5: know you have to you go through your growing pains
Speaker 5: with it and kind of figure out what works best
Speaker 5: for you. But yeah, it's just like and the cool thing,
Speaker 5: like with both the league and with film is like
Speaker 5: you have all these creative write offs, you know, like
Speaker 5: I know some of them kind of went away when
Speaker 5: some tax codes changed recently, but like you know, being
Speaker 5: an NFL player, you could buy a TV and buy
Speaker 5: the big entertainment system to be like, look, I need
Speaker 5: this to watch film, and that could be a big
Speaker 5: write off. You know. With film you go to the movies,
Speaker 5: that's a rite off. So it's you can get creative
Speaker 5: with it, but you also have to be really smart because,
Speaker 5: like anything, they're like high piers in their low periods.
Speaker 5: Like right now they're talking about there's going to probably
Speaker 5: be another strike, you know, which is crazy because when
Speaker 5: I first moved to LA. Yeah, when I first go
Speaker 5: to LA, girlfriends went down because of the first writer
Speaker 5: strike that that that was a part of. So you know,
Speaker 5: you got to be just really lean and creative with
Speaker 5: it to try to get through these rough months because
Speaker 5: I do think it's probably going to be down for
Speaker 5: at least three or four months, and you know, not
Speaker 5: a lot of people are going to be working.
Speaker 2: So you went from yes, miss Ellis Ross, can I
Speaker 2: let's get you some coffee? To then miss Ellis Ross,
Speaker 2: could you do another take for me? Because you then
Speaker 2: directed her in Blackish? What was that like?
Speaker 5: Man? It was really cool, like, yeah, you know, I've
Speaker 5: been a big fan of Tracy, Like I remember her
Speaker 5: being on the Lyricist Lounge show back in the day,
Speaker 5: and you know, you know, she's just been talented all
Speaker 5: her life, and yeah, it was it was a really
Speaker 5: surreal moment for real, like you know, and there are
Speaker 5: a few people like can you literally? Like I mentioned,
Speaker 5: he was a writer on Girlfriends you know back in
Speaker 5: the day too, So to kind of like a creator
Speaker 5: as Cross kind of in that way was really awesome.
Speaker 5: And you know, she's really gracious and always has in
Speaker 5: and just a really great person. So it was smooth
Speaker 5: And did.
Speaker 2: That come from the once you And first of all,
Speaker 2: like hair love, I want to talk about that because
Speaker 2: such a beautiful, such a beautiful short, but you had
Speaker 2: to have you raised money for that, Like you had
Speaker 2: to raise what three hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so to get that made. Yeah, so that wasn't
Speaker 5: necessarily our like initial goal. So I'll share my philosophy
Speaker 5: with kickstarter. So with raising money online, like you know,
Speaker 5: I think one the first thing is like you have
Speaker 5: to have a decent social media following if you're trying
Speaker 5: to raise like a significant amount of money, right, Like
Speaker 5: that was my third Kickstarter, So I'd done like a
Speaker 5: Kickstarter for my first movie, The Last Fall. I dine
Speaker 5: another one for my second movie, Nine Rides, and they
Speaker 5: both were like a bit of a struggle. Did you
Speaker 5: raise fifteen thousand dollars? Like it was literally reaching out
Speaker 5: to people from Facebook that you maybe talk to in
Speaker 5: like twenty years, some high school and things, Hey check
Speaker 5: out this link. You know, I'm a filmmaker now, you know,
Speaker 5: see if you can throw twenty on it. And it
Speaker 5: was just like literally every person that don't to those
Speaker 5: first two, I feel like I knew them directly. And
Speaker 5: it was because I, you know, personally reached out to him.
Speaker 5: Was the reason why we hit barely hit that goal.
Speaker 5: But for this one, it was you know, I know
Speaker 5: it was going to be animated, you know, I knew
Speaker 5: we're gonna need a lot a bigger budget just because
Speaker 5: I didn't really know how things were going to play out.
Speaker 5: And so I think we set the budget of like
Speaker 5: seventy five thousand initially with the hope though that we
Speaker 5: would raise more, just because with Kickstarter, if you don't
Speaker 5: hit your number, then you don't get anything, but you
Speaker 5: can raise more than your initial goals.
Speaker 3: So I didn't know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's some like yeah, there's some
Speaker 5: like any Go Go and you know Seed and Spark,
Speaker 5: where you know you kind of get what you raised,
Speaker 5: but you know, it kind of incentivized you. Honestly, I
Speaker 5: actually prefer it that way because you know, you can't
Speaker 5: really slack with it. You know, if you know that
Speaker 5: you're just gonna raise what you get, you you may
Speaker 5: not post about it as urgently as you may, you know,
Speaker 5: knowing that all it's now or nothing, you know. And
Speaker 5: so yeah, it was just like this this big hustle,
Speaker 5: and a lot of it was just kind of like
Speaker 5: growing the brand on social media, even like before the
Speaker 5: Kickstarter went, you know, just being more than just hopping
Speaker 5: on when you have a project to promote, you know,
Speaker 5: sharing your day, sharing advice, you know, just kind of
Speaker 5: being yourself. And obviously not social media isn't for everybody,
Speaker 5: and I think Twitter is taking a bit of a
Speaker 5: darker turn kind of in recent years. But you know,
Speaker 5: back in the day, it was it was fun and
Speaker 5: you could be yourself and it wouldn't be a lot
Speaker 5: of drama or a lot of smoke, and you could
Speaker 5: just do it. And you know, I was able to
Speaker 5: raise my following up to a way bigger than I
Speaker 5: had in the first couple Kickstarter campaigns, so had a
Speaker 5: bigger support level. I think with the project, there were
Speaker 5: a couple of things that just were like sometimes you
Speaker 5: can't even predict what's going to happen. So Asty Harrison.
Speaker 5: She did the artwork for us, and I caught her
Speaker 5: maybe six months before her first book came out, Little Leaders. Yeah,
Speaker 5: she blew up. She blew up, Like you can't even
Speaker 5: like get on her schedule now because she's like so crazy.
Speaker 5: But we literally i'd literally caught her before she came out,
Speaker 5: and apparently our book publisher was a big fans of her.
Speaker 5: I didn't even know this back in the day, so
Speaker 5: when we ended up doing the artwork and things, that's
Speaker 5: how That's how Penguin Random House reached out, because they're like, oh,
Speaker 5: you guys doing a picture, but for this, like we
Speaker 5: would let to collab. So that was one thing. Another
Speaker 5: couple of things that happened is just that you know,
Speaker 5: Dove reached out and that was really cool, just because
Speaker 5: you know, I think for us it was a matter of, like,
Speaker 5: you share the story of what you want to do,
Speaker 5: you kind of do a personal video, and I think
Speaker 5: the artwork, I think the storyline about us wanting to
Speaker 5: do the story about a black father trying to do
Speaker 5: their daughter's hair for the first time, it just really
Speaker 5: resonated and so really beyond any of the first two
Speaker 5: Kickstarter campaigns. Majority of the people that donated to this
Speaker 5: I didn't even know personally, Like I didn't even slide
Speaker 5: the link to them directly. It just kind of went
Speaker 5: a viral on its own. And I think, you know,
Speaker 5: you just can't predict those things, you know, like sometimes
Speaker 5: you're just in the right place, right time, And I
Speaker 5: think that was one of them. And I think also
Speaker 5: the state of animation at that time was really important
Speaker 5: for the success of this too, because back then there
Speaker 5: was no Spider Verse, there was no you know, Mowana,
Speaker 5: there was no you know incanto, like brown, black and
Speaker 5: brown characters were damn near non existent in animated movies.
Speaker 5: It was you know, Princess and the Frog, it was
Speaker 5: around his movie home, it was Baby's kids, and then
Speaker 5: I think Prince of Egypt. Yeah, it was like princip was.
Speaker 2: Literally like, first of all, Baby, it's like twenty five
Speaker 2: for any you got a big conic, yeah, iconic.
Speaker 5: No, for sure. So there was just like a bit
Speaker 5: of a starving I think for our community to kind
Speaker 5: of see themselves in this animated form. And I think for.
Speaker 2: Us, it's twenty twenty out in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: So the kickstarted with twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a four or five year journey
Speaker 2: for you. Yeys, no three, I'm glad at math that's bad.
Speaker 5: Well, and then the auscar has.
Speaker 2: Happened in twenty twenty, right, Yeah till now. I that
Speaker 2: really with me because I feel like the beauty of
Speaker 2: your story is just like, you know, you do the work.
Speaker 2: You don't wait for the people with opportunity, you know,
Speaker 2: people with power to tap you on the shoulder, like, Oh, Matthew,
Speaker 2: we heard about you. You know this is incredible. You
Speaker 2: do the work, you put it out there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you don't wait, I mean I think that's just yeah.
Speaker 5: I think that's how you got to be in this game.
Speaker 5: You know, like there's so many reasons why people will
Speaker 5: tell you no, and like if you can prove the idea,
Speaker 5: then it just makes it that much easier for you know,
Speaker 5: I always share the story, like I don't know if
Speaker 5: it's real or not, but I attributed to Chris Rock
Speaker 5: and it's a story about I guess back when he
Speaker 5: was a broke comedian. You know, he would his car
Speaker 5: it breakdown all the time, and he'd be on the
Speaker 5: side of the road trying to like put his thumb out,
Speaker 5: trying to get somebody to like pick him up so
Speaker 5: he can like take it to the shop or whatever.
Speaker 5: And nobody would stop when he had his thumb out,
Speaker 5: But when he would get behind his car and he'd
Speaker 5: actually start pushing it to try to get it to
Speaker 5: his destination, that's when people would pull over to try
Speaker 5: to help him. And I just always attributed to like,
Speaker 5: you know, people want to help people that they see
Speaker 5: you're helping themselves, and you know, I think that's just
Speaker 5: how you got to in this new day and age
Speaker 5: of streaming and a thousand reasons why somebody will tell
Speaker 5: you no, like you have to put yourself in a
Speaker 5: position to help yourself so that people can hop in
Speaker 5: and help you get it over the line. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I have to say your kickstarted really inspired because I
Speaker 1: used to teach preschool for ten years and I struggled
Speaker 1: to find books with like and I taught at Newark,
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, black and be black black,
Speaker 1: and I struggled to find books with black babies and
Speaker 1: so so I teach fry that education. But I wrote
Speaker 1: a book called Happy Birthday Molly More, and I was like,
Speaker 1: she's gonna be black, She's going to have like four
Speaker 1: c CCC hair, you know. And I did a gig start.
Speaker 1: I think I wanted to raise thirty five thousand. We
Speaker 1: raised seventy. But I remember being so thank you, so
Speaker 1: inspired by because I remember going to Target and being like,
Speaker 1: there's well, yeah, hair.
Speaker 2: Love, you know.
Speaker 1: And now when you go to Target, yes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: do they make books like a whole sexually? I'm like,
Speaker 1: do they big books, not even the whole go hold
Speaker 1: of target. Everybody is POC. Great, we have all this
Speaker 1: juicy goodness to Matthew, We're going to pause with the
Speaker 1: cause for quick breaks. We could pay these bills. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back and we're back in black and back
Speaker 1: in business. Let's keep chatting. As a director, how do
Speaker 1: you feel black representation has been, like has changed since
Speaker 1: you first came out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's like been a really big shift
Speaker 5: in a lot of ways. You know, you know, it
Speaker 5: isn't it isn't right. It's like in front of the
Speaker 5: camera for show, like you know, I think there's been
Speaker 5: this really big push to you know, make sure you know.
Speaker 5: I think back in the day, it was like, all right,
Speaker 5: maybe we'll get one character in there, and it's like
Speaker 5: the black friend that like you never see their inner
Speaker 5: life and never meet the parents or any of that stuff.
Speaker 5: They just are there to service, like the main character
Speaker 5: who was in the POC. But now you're really seeing
Speaker 5: this push to really just have diverse casts all around,
Speaker 5: you know, like you know, multiple black characters kind of
Speaker 5: in an ensemble cast. You know, you know brown you
Speaker 5: know brown representation, you know, agent representation, just you're you're
Speaker 5: seeing it really across the board. But with that said,
Speaker 5: still behind the camera, you know, people would like to
Speaker 5: think that it's really changed a lot, but it really hasn't.
Speaker 5: You know. There are always studies that come out, and
Speaker 5: probably in TV is where it's been the biggest boom
Speaker 5: for diversity, just because literally thousands of TV shows, so
Speaker 5: they kind of have to you know, like you can't.
Speaker 5: Back in the day, they were like, you know, maybe
Speaker 5: a couple of hundred. Now they're thousands, so you kind
Speaker 5: of have to reach the net a little wider. But
Speaker 5: you know, in film, it's still very much the same
Speaker 5: as it kind of it's always been. You know, it's
Speaker 5: really hard for you know, black and brown directors to
Speaker 5: get opportunities. You know, I think I saw a study
Speaker 5: that UCLA did where they were talking about which streaming
Speaker 5: apparently numbers have gotten more diverse because again, thousands of opportunities, right,
Speaker 5: But when it comes to theatrical the numbers are still
Speaker 5: very much like seventy seven percent white white men that
Speaker 5: are directing most of the movies that go to have
Speaker 5: theatrical releases. So you know, there's still a lot of
Speaker 5: work to be done, and that was one of the
Speaker 5: cool things about being an executive at Monkey Paul, which
Speaker 5: is Jordan Pil's company, like being able to be on
Speaker 5: the other side of things and you know, trying to
Speaker 5: you know, beat the drum for other black creators to
Speaker 5: kind of get in there to have their opportunities. But
Speaker 5: you know, we need more of us not only behind
Speaker 5: the camera, but also in the boardrooms also at the
Speaker 5: production companies, you know, because this to get a project
Speaker 5: moved forward, it has to go to so many layers.
Speaker 5: You know, you have to get it through you know,
Speaker 5: some low level executing. You got to take it to
Speaker 5: the higher ups and they got to take it to
Speaker 5: their board and then you know, so to get a
Speaker 5: project through like five different layers of trying to move
Speaker 5: it forward, and then you know you have the super
Speaker 5: Black project and now you get to the top and
Speaker 5: it's like no black people on this approval board, you know.
Speaker 5: And that's why a lot of movies have a hard
Speaker 5: time moving forward, just because they can't see If they
Speaker 5: can't see themselves as a hero, they don't want to
Speaker 5: move help over forward. And the crazy thing is like
Speaker 5: we have been conditioned. We we black audiences. We only
Speaker 5: we have to see the humanity and other characters because
Speaker 5: all our life, you know, it's like, shit, we weren't
Speaker 5: a pretty women. We weren't in Princess Bride, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean? Like we have to kind of find
Speaker 5: the ways to find empathy in characters. And I think
Speaker 5: people are filming some kind of way because now they're
Speaker 5: having to find empathy in our characters and they're not
Speaker 5: used to it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you think about movies like to
Speaker 2: see Ryan Koogler. For example, my husband and I just
Speaker 2: saw Creed three, Yeah, director by Michael B. Jordan's starring
Speaker 2: Michael B.
Speaker 4: Jordan.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is with Jonathan Majors. I mean,
Speaker 2: just an incredibly from Newark.
Speaker 1: I'm saying brick City, Okay, yeah, he wants to like
Speaker 1: say Benedict's High School. He's I live in New York,
Speaker 1: yeah and so and so Yeah, he's born and raised
Speaker 1: in Newark.
Speaker 2: And you sort of and you think about Ryan Kugler
Speaker 2: getting his start, yeah with fruit Vale, but then also
Speaker 2: Black Panther. And when Black Panther came out, people were like,
Speaker 2: is this the moment it is if this film did
Speaker 2: phenomenally well. But then you sort of saw this tapering off,
Speaker 2: like there wasn't this huge, you know, renaissance, And I
Speaker 2: feel like even the names you still see doing black film,
Speaker 2: like Spike Lee's been around forever, you know, but like,
Speaker 2: are there any other than yourself, new exciting black filmmakers
Speaker 2: or projects that you're like, this is you know, this
Speaker 2: person probably wouldn't have made it ten years ago, but
Speaker 2: they're making it now.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean shit, I mean damn near, damn
Speaker 5: near everybody you know, damn near, Ryan included. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like it's just thankfully because people are taking more risk,
Speaker 5: especially in the independent space. You know, Ryan had to
Speaker 5: be indie. You know, he did a movie for less
Speaker 5: than a million dollars, you know, got it, got it
Speaker 5: into Sunday. And so Aby Rockwell, whose movie one thousand
Speaker 5: and one just came out starring Tianna Taylor. You know,
Speaker 5: she just did the Sundance move as well. It's coming
Speaker 5: out with the It just came out a couple of
Speaker 5: weeks ago. Through Focused Features. Yeah, I can list of
Speaker 5: you know, a hundred different names of people that you
Speaker 5: know are deserving and thankfully have finally gotten their opportunity.
Speaker 5: But there's also a lot that haven't gotten that opportunity.
Speaker 5: You know, back in the day, it really felt like,
Speaker 5: at least into twenty tens, when I was transitioning from
Speaker 5: being into directing, always kind of felt like there could
Speaker 5: only be one black director per year, so you know,
Speaker 5: and if you weren't that one, that was kind of
Speaker 5: the crown was put upon your head. Like you know,
Speaker 5: it's like back to score one. You know, you do
Speaker 5: a movie and all right, it didn't hit, So now
Speaker 5: what you know, and you got to like try to
Speaker 5: find money or think of another idea to try to
Speaker 5: get back at it again. So you know, I think
Speaker 5: whenever we get into a place where opportunities are just
Speaker 5: like abundant and you know, we don't have these kind
Speaker 5: of dips and these highs and these I think that's
Speaker 5: really when we're gonna see that true parody that's going
Speaker 5: to happen. But you know, I think now we're going
Speaker 5: to see a big bubble bursting in the streaming industry
Speaker 5: just because like everybody has been this big arms race
Speaker 5: of people trying to like put money in and they're
Speaker 5: not really getting their money back. So you know, I
Speaker 5: think it's going to become even harder for black and
Speaker 5: brown creators to get their voices out there, because you know,
Speaker 5: the belts are about to get.
Speaker 2: Tighter, for sure, and we're probably gonna be the first
Speaker 2: to oh for sure. Always kicked off the schedule, the plan.
Speaker 1: Let's make a let's talk about it, you know, since
Speaker 1: me and these girls are packing and our locks are popping,
Speaker 1: so like we would love to like like once, you're
Speaker 1: because when I went natural, Oh my gosh, I remember
Speaker 1: my mother distinctly said both of my parents are Nigerian.
Speaker 1: And the first thing she said to me that think
Speaker 1: was my dad. He said, so you never plan on marriage?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, that's because back then, like and it's so crazy
Speaker 1: because they grew up up in a time when I
Speaker 1: remember my mom had an afro win right, you know,
Speaker 1: and then it just became like, you know, natural hair
Speaker 1: was very unfashionable and it was very unprofessional, you know,
Speaker 1: and so me going natural was like this political statement.
Speaker 1: It was just because for me, I didn't like the
Speaker 1: way the perm made my scout feel. It wasn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to be political. I was just like, why
Speaker 1: can't I wear from? And so so I'm curious about
Speaker 1: like what has your hair journey been like, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: what was your hair like in middle school? How long
Speaker 1: have you had locked and what's your journey been like?
Speaker 5: You know, you know, I've always had my hair pretty low,
Speaker 5: I guess, like kind of growing up, you know, to
Speaker 5: being an athlete and honestly just me and honest not
Speaker 5: really knowing a lot about the natural hair movement kind
Speaker 5: of growing up. You know, my mom she used to
Speaker 5: she worked in a corporate settings, so she would always
Speaker 5: had to either straighten her hair, you know, throw a
Speaker 5: throw a more quote unquote professional you know, wig on
Speaker 5: or something. And so I know it's also a little
Speaker 5: different for guys. I feel like, you know, being an athlete,
Speaker 5: like nobody ever really came at me for like my
Speaker 5: hair or my hair texture. But you know, my sister,
Speaker 5: you know, I always I always know that she felt
Speaker 5: like maybe she didn't feel like dogs. I probably gotta
Speaker 5: talk to her about this back when she was younger,
Speaker 5: but you know, she always used to have to wear
Speaker 5: her hair straightened, you know, because that was kind of
Speaker 5: what was the norm I guess back then. And I
Speaker 5: think and that's also a bit of the reason why
Speaker 5: for me, we really wanted to do it animated and
Speaker 5: with a young kid as a protagonist, just because I
Speaker 5: think a lot of kids natural hair journey starts, not
Speaker 5: even natural hair journey, but hair journeys in general start
Speaker 5: when they're children. And so when you grow up and
Speaker 5: you watch these cartoons and you know, you watch these
Speaker 5: images of kind of who the heroes and these stories
Speaker 5: and what are the things that I want to be,
Speaker 5: you know a lot of times that's like that's a
Speaker 5: big influence. Like I'll never forget when Frozen came out,
Speaker 5: you know, seeing you know, little black girls run around
Speaker 5: with the blonde straight wigs and things trying to like
Speaker 5: beat these characters, and it just was like damn, you know,
Speaker 5: like I really wish there was characters that looked like them,
Speaker 5: that had their type of hair, so they felt like
Speaker 5: they could be the hero in their own story and
Speaker 5: not feel like they have to kind of conform to
Speaker 5: what other people are trying to say that they need
Speaker 5: to look like. And so yeah, for me, like being
Speaker 5: an athlete, being an athlete, being in film, I've never
Speaker 5: been told like, can't wear your hair like that cares
Speaker 5: une professional, you know what I mean. Like both of
Speaker 5: those industries are very embracing of Like, you know, if
Speaker 5: I was in any other profession that was more quote
Speaker 5: unquote corporate, for sure, probably had to have some hard conversations.
Speaker 5: And that's a big reason why too. Like I'm so
Speaker 5: happy that the Crown Act has become a lot more popular,
Speaker 5: and it's like passing in more states. Still hasn't been
Speaker 5: passed on a federal level, but very important. And I
Speaker 5: just think, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: you got to just let people be who they want
Speaker 5: to be. Like they want to wear their hair straight,
Speaker 5: they want to wear it short, they don't want to
Speaker 5: have hair at all. Like it's all good and there's
Speaker 5: no reason why we need to be policing how people's
Speaker 5: hair grows out of their head. It's like it is
Speaker 5: none of your business.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean you honestly, like you've become an icon
Speaker 2: for black hair hair equality. I feel like ever since
Speaker 2: doing Hair Love was that was that part of the
Speaker 2: intention behind the film? Were you I know you're a
Speaker 2: dad now, right, were you dad at the time? Did
Speaker 2: you think about your daughter?
Speaker 5: No? No, I wasn't.
Speaker 2: Okay, I wasn't.
Speaker 5: But you know, I'm really big on empathy and like
Speaker 5: seeing a battle that I knew I was going to
Speaker 5: be fighting hopefully in the future, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like the idea that I mean, there's always a story,
Speaker 5: you know, like kids being kicked out of school because
Speaker 5: their hair is a certain way, or being told they
Speaker 5: can't work in a certain place because the hair looks
Speaker 5: like this. It's just it was the stupidest thing to me.
Speaker 5: I think kind of the activism part of it all
Speaker 5: definitely was like very organic like that when never was
Speaker 5: really the intention going in. I think the activism was
Speaker 5: supposed to be more so just like look at this
Speaker 5: little girl who loves herself, she loves her hair, she
Speaker 5: has four sea hair like. She is a character that
Speaker 5: hopefully little girls can and want to be like. But
Speaker 5: you know, things kind of took off in a different
Speaker 5: way with this, with this project, so you know, it
Speaker 5: never has a short film, had a book, want an Oscar,
Speaker 5: got a TV show about to come, and a hair
Speaker 5: product like it's just been pretty wild.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you about that. So you've been a major part
Speaker 1: of Dove's hair Love collection inspired by your film, which
Speaker 1: is awesome, Like, and so I know that their dad's
Speaker 1: out there? Who are like, because how old is your your.
Speaker 5: She turned six months tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Actually cool, she's a new baby.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you'll be.
Speaker 1: There maybe as a little boy.
Speaker 2: But I was kind of I thought I might have
Speaker 2: heard a little something are you at home right now?
Speaker 5: Yeah? She probably cried in the background because.
Speaker 2: My mommy ears are just like somebody get that baby?
Speaker 1: So like what knowing that? What you know now about
Speaker 1: like you know kind of like as you been like
Speaker 1: steeped into like the haircure journey and like you said,
Speaker 1: how different it was for your daughter, for your sister,
Speaker 1: like any like what are you anticipating? Do you have
Speaker 1: any advice for new dads? It's like, how do I
Speaker 1: start to instill man that you're here?
Speaker 5: Is beautiful? You know. I think the two things of
Speaker 5: advice I would say is listen, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 5: you know, a big part of our short was this
Speaker 5: idea of like parents taking the time to not get
Speaker 5: out of their own head and actually listen to their
Speaker 5: kids and what they want. So that's a big one.
Speaker 5: And then also, you know, just the information is out there.
Speaker 5: You know, if you want to learn how to do hair,
Speaker 5: you know, there's all kinds of vlogs on YouTube and
Speaker 5: you know, websites and groups and all kinds of things
Speaker 5: that you can be a part of to try to
Speaker 5: figure it out. You know, I think for me, doing
Speaker 5: hair is less about just the act itself. It's more
Speaker 5: about just getting that personal time, you know, with your
Speaker 5: loved one and kind of showing them how much you care.
Speaker 5: And I think that's really also it's also a really
Speaker 5: amazing way to buyd I think with your kids. You know,
Speaker 5: it's just YouTube in a room and you got this
Speaker 5: goal and you're trying to figure it out. You know,
Speaker 5: I think it's a real awesome way to kind of
Speaker 5: show how much you love a person. And you know,
Speaker 5: it's one of the things where you do it and
Speaker 5: you know other people were able to kind of see
Speaker 5: that love as they walk through that day, you know,
Speaker 5: with that hairstyle that you were able to put together.
Speaker 5: So you know, definitely, you know, our little one right now,
Speaker 5: she's probably gonna be a late bloomer when it comes
Speaker 5: to you know, having a you know, a full head
Speaker 5: of hair. That's you know, right right now, it's a
Speaker 5: little low, but you know, I'm looking forward to, you know,
Speaker 5: when it starts a sprout, like a like a wead.
Speaker 5: I'm sure it's coming soon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel like kids
Speaker 2: today has such an incredible opportunity because with the Hey,
Speaker 2: with the the hair care line at Target, and all
Speaker 2: these stories that I go to for my son, I'm like,
Speaker 2: take a flavor, any flavor. It's so many options. I
Speaker 2: feel like in our childhood, at least for me. We
Speaker 2: talked about this before, but it was not exactly an
Speaker 2: experience where I felt my mother's love. It was or like,
Speaker 2: is my mom gonna put me up for adoption? My
Speaker 2: mom's white, like is she going to send me back
Speaker 2: after this? Because she really doesn't seem to like this.
Speaker 2: But no, it's it's incredible. And even just the like
Speaker 2: your acknowledgment, like you're understanding that this will be something
Speaker 2: that I'm going to, you know, intentionally think of in
Speaker 2: a positive way, is already I feel like such a
Speaker 2: great example for dads, you know, or for any any
Speaker 2: man who's caring for a little girl, you know, with
Speaker 2: natural hair.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's like this idea that
Speaker 5: I think back in twenty seventeen, twenty twenty, you know,
Speaker 5: when when when the project was a little newer, Like,
Speaker 5: you know, the idea of a dad doing the daughter's
Speaker 5: hair was this kind of new, newer idea and like
Speaker 5: obviously people have done it, you know, back in the day,
Speaker 5: but you know, trying to bring it to a bigger
Speaker 5: audience of things. You know, dads always get credit and
Speaker 5: pass on the back for doing the most basic things,
Speaker 5: you know what I think saying that, I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: it's like you're be a parent, you know, And I
Speaker 5: think the normalizing of you know, fathers doing this and
Speaker 5: then not being some anomaly that you know, we need
Speaker 5: to bake this big fuss about. It's like all right,
Speaker 5: you know, like my wife's at work early and I'm here,
Speaker 5: so I'm gonna do the hair. Like it's not some
Speaker 5: big thing that needs to be this big deal or anything.
Speaker 5: So I think also just the normalizing of it was
Speaker 5: really important too, so that you know, the pats aren't
Speaker 5: so big when.
Speaker 2: It happens you want to go viral. Matthew just posted
Speaker 2: the video of you brushing daughter's little fear.
Speaker 3: Viral.
Speaker 5: You will be you went a war.
Speaker 1: I love I love I love the dads that babysit
Speaker 1: their own baby, you know, like oh do you need
Speaker 1: money for that is?
Speaker 2: How has that transition? Go ahead?
Speaker 1: No, no, go go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you because you are busy doing
Speaker 2: a bunch of different projects. I'm sure. How has that
Speaker 2: transition been? Figuring out the schedule with a newborn at home?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that's crazy. You know, was tired all the time.
Speaker 5: But you know it's great though. It's just it's something
Speaker 5: that you know has to be figured out. You know.
Speaker 5: We were lucky enough to be able to get a
Speaker 5: little nanny situation, so that kind of helps us because
Speaker 5: my wife has to go into work and a lot
Speaker 5: of times I have to try to like work either
Speaker 5: from home or have to go somewhere on set somewhere
Speaker 5: to be working too. So to kind of have somebody
Speaker 5: who can be holding it down and kind of like
Speaker 5: know what we want them to do has been like
Speaker 5: super super important. You know. Have we not been in
Speaker 5: this position and living in la where we don't have family,
Speaker 5: probably would live back in Chicago or on the East
Speaker 5: Coast somewhere, so we would have had family close by
Speaker 5: to be able to do a similar thing.
Speaker 1: Just final question for me, like what is your hair
Speaker 1: care routine? You have talks now, Yeah, so what do
Speaker 1: you do to maintain them? Keep them?
Speaker 5: Help listen. I don't have much of a routine at all.
Speaker 5: Just you know, I'm in I'm in like filmmaker mode.
Speaker 5: So you know, I just wake up. You know, I
Speaker 5: got my little lock sock that I put on to
Speaker 5: kind of protected at night, or you know, you get
Speaker 5: the silk pillow case, and you know, I just I
Speaker 5: just go through the day just doing my thing. And
Speaker 5: you know, every three or four weeks, I get up
Speaker 5: with my hairstylists who retwists me. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 5: have like this big routine, you know, especially now that like,
Speaker 5: I don't really have a lot going on. I'm just
Speaker 5: at home. So you know, obviously when it was like
Speaker 5: you're hitting up war shows and things, You're you're way
Speaker 5: on it a lot more. But yeah, I'm always been
Speaker 5: pretty low key with things. So yeah, it's not this
Speaker 5: big thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's what I love about locks because people always like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm like, honestly, I don't do anything.
Speaker 1: Like when I had a fro oh yeah, there was
Speaker 1: so much work. I don't know how you do a
Speaker 1: mandy like with your hair for because just the level
Speaker 1: of product. You can't just leave the house when you
Speaker 1: have a frow. The pig pick path to destroy my life. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I literally woke up like this. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is my sleep.
Speaker 5: It still looks cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. We should get paid for our time,
Speaker 2: for the additional hair hairtime. I wanted to know, Matthew,
Speaker 2: what are you working on now? What should people know
Speaker 2: about you? What do you have coming up next? Is
Speaker 2: an annoying question.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, not at all. No. We so we
Speaker 5: turned a hair Love into a TV series. So we've
Speaker 5: been working on it for almost three years now, so
Speaker 5: it's going to be coming out this fall on HBO Max.
Speaker 5: The new name of it is young Love, so not
Speaker 5: hair Love because we had this really creative way of
Speaker 5: thinking about it. So the dad his name is Stephen Love,
Speaker 5: and the mom her name is Angela and Young so
Speaker 5: you put it together young Love. So it's really fun
Speaker 5: and it's kind of a show that one thing and
Speaker 5: one thing I noticed about animated series were that a
Speaker 5: lot of times you never really saw from the millennial perspective.
Speaker 5: So like a lot of times the dad's the parents
Speaker 5: were already established. They're like in their career, they're making money, Like,
Speaker 5: you know, money was never an issue and their dream
Speaker 5: was already quote unquote fulfilled. Right for us, we wanted
Speaker 5: to do this show where it's kind of like you
Speaker 5: have this young, unmarried couple who as a young child,
Speaker 5: but they still love each other. They're figuring things out.
Speaker 5: They live with her grandparents. They live with her parents,
Speaker 5: so Zuri's grandparents, and they haven't really achieved their career
Speaker 5: dreams or gold yet, so they're still trying to figure
Speaker 5: that out. They're still trying to raise his young daughter.
Speaker 5: And it's set on the West Side of Chicago, so
Speaker 5: it's like, uh, you know, very very black neighborhood and environment,
Speaker 5: and you know, obviously there are a lot of challenges
Speaker 5: that have come with it. Angela's a hairstylist, Steven is
Speaker 5: a producers and Zuri is just her same like confident,
Speaker 5: energetic self and you know, hilarity ensued. So really excited
Speaker 5: about it and that'll be coming out this fall. So yeah,
Speaker 5: that's kind of the.
Speaker 2: Big one voice iss Zuri.
Speaker 5: Man, we haven't announced everybody yet, but if she'sus.
Speaker 2: You you haven't no, Yeah, what about this yet? I
Speaker 2: want to know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, we haven't announced hery, we haven't announced our
Speaker 5: cash yet, but she's this young girl who just kind
Speaker 5: of represents Zuri in real life too.
Speaker 2: Will we be hearing any voices who were at that
Speaker 2: that girlfriend set back in two thousand and seven?
Speaker 5: Eight?
Speaker 2: Will there be any familiar voices in the show?
Speaker 5: You know, a couple, a couple, but yes, I could say.
Speaker 1: Man's trying to she's trying to.
Speaker 2: You study radio, I study print, baby.
Speaker 1: So this is honestly this is an adult show, or
Speaker 1: this is like.
Speaker 5: His family, his family, like you know, would say, like,
Speaker 5: you know, Blackish without the money is like a good cop, you.
Speaker 4: Know, the proud family lives and inter generational. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: very very situation. Yeah, very intergenerational. And yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: I can't even say their middle class, like they don't
Speaker 4: have a class. They're trying to figure out their financial
Speaker 4: situation to even get to a So, yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 4: be fun.
Speaker 2: And Chicago will be a character too. You get to
Speaker 2: see like sometimes you don't get to know where that
Speaker 2: they just live in, like you know, you don't really
Speaker 2: get to know that.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, Chicago is very much a character too,
Speaker 5: and you know kind of like what we wanted to
Speaker 5: do with, you know, young black representation and animation. Like
Speaker 5: you know, Chicago gets a horrible rap in mainstream media,
Speaker 5: and just like one of the Showcase, just like that
Speaker 5: a Midwestern city where they you kind of able to
Speaker 5: actually see the people that live there as opposed to
Speaker 5: like the headlines and the spicy takes that people try
Speaker 5: to put out there to croud their own agenda.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's gonna be fun and you get to
Speaker 3: bring it home. Yeah it's your home city. Oh yeah, Chicago,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, awesome. Well, Matthew Cherry, thank you so so
Speaker 3: much for sharing a little bit about your story and
Speaker 3: joining Brown Ambition and just for personifying Brown ambition.
Speaker 5: I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: And where can the people find you if they want
Speaker 1: to follow you?
Speaker 5: And just you know, you're just on social you know, Matthew.
Speaker 5: Matthew A. Cherry is kind of my handle on everything,
Speaker 5: and yeah I'm around. Just hit me up.
Speaker 2: And as a big sister to a little brother who
Speaker 2: is working full time and raising money for films in
Speaker 2: Atlanta right now, I just want to say he's geeked
Speaker 2: that I'm going to talk. I will no, but I
Speaker 2: feel like your your story is so inspirational to anyone
Speaker 2: who's like, oh maybe I can do this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like everybody has a story, you know,
Speaker 5: just got to get it out of you.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: We're happy that you came b a fan. Make sure
Speaker 1: you follow Matthew A. Cherry on all the socials, and
Speaker 1: make sure you support young Love because you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just love having Brown and Vision folks on here.
Speaker 2: Get your HBO Max logins in shape, find out who
Speaker 2: you can borrow from.
Speaker 5: No doubt. Yeah, we will hope to have more information
Speaker 5: out about Assume, like the release date and trailers and
Speaker 5: all that.
Speaker 2: Oh I can't wait to see the trailers.
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, all right until next week, guys, Thank you
Speaker 1: Brownovision family.
Speaker 5: Appreciate Hey, ba.
Speaker 2: Fam, We could not do this show without your support
Speaker 2: or the support of our team behind the scenes. The
Speaker 2: Brown and Vision podcast is produced by Imani Crosby and
Speaker 2: Dennis Stanplinsky is our in house tech guru. I am
Speaker 2: your co host Mandy Woodrif Santos, and we will see
Speaker 2: y'all next week, BA Fam.