Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's me W camout Bell. I'm dropping into
Speaker 2: your feed today to bring your preview of my new podcast,
Speaker 2: Who's with Me Now. If you know me in my work,
Speaker 2: I like to have conversations, but not just regular conversations.
Speaker 2: I like to have conversations that focus on the big talk,
Speaker 2: the big things. So I'm talking to some people, reached
Speaker 2: out to friends of mine, people I admire, to ask
Speaker 2: them things that I really want to know, and also
Speaker 2: to give them their flowers. I hope you enjoy it,
Speaker 2: and if you do, find Who's with Me with W
Speaker 2: cam al Bell wherever you listen to your podcasts. Push
Speaker 2: can Plus subscribers can hear each episode ad free. Sign
Speaker 2: up on the Who's with Me with W kmal Bell
Speaker 2: show page on Apple or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, it's me W Cabell. Welcome to episode five
Speaker 2: of Who's With Me? And also, if you're on YouTube
Speaker 2: like subscribe, hit that hype button. I hear that hype
Speaker 2: button is important. I hypet things now too, so hit
Speaker 2: that hype button. If you're on the regular podcast apps,
Speaker 2: just subscribe, and you know, hit the share button. Share
Speaker 2: with a friend everybody, please share this podcast with your friends.
Speaker 2: That's how we build this It's really going well right now.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about it, but we got to share
Speaker 2: it with the friends. Please share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Today the guest is David Diggs. Super excited to have
Speaker 2: him on. The conversation was great. You may know David
Speaker 2: from the most recent season of The Boys. You may
Speaker 2: know him as one of the stars of the musical
Speaker 2: Hamilton on Broadway. You might know him from his rap
Speaker 2: group clipping he's a rapper, or you may know him
Speaker 2: from just Lots of Stuff snow Piercer. The dude works hard.
Speaker 2: We talk about working hard and the importance of being
Speaker 2: with your family. We also talk about the importance of
Speaker 2: men nurturing their friendships with their men friends. Famously, he's
Speaker 2: friends with Rafael Cassol. They met each other in high school.
Speaker 2: Raefael is also a good person who is too good
Speaker 2: looking to be such a good person. I don't know
Speaker 2: how they do it. And also they're both famously from
Speaker 2: the East Bay of Northern California, Oakland and Berkeley and
Speaker 2: a little bit Albany. Weirdly, but anyway, we talked about
Speaker 2: all that enjoy the interview when we get there. First,
Speaker 2: I have a confession to make. I w Cambell used
Speaker 2: to be a fan of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, it's not I was
Speaker 2: bit by the martial arts bug early as a young person.
Speaker 2: I grew up in the era of Bruce Lee movies
Speaker 2: being on television and renting them from the video store,
Speaker 2: and so I did martial arts as a kid, also
Speaker 2: as a teenager. So I love martial arts and I
Speaker 2: found my pathway into the UFC through martial arts. Originally,
Speaker 2: when the UFC came out in the nineties, I didn't
Speaker 2: like it because their whole marketing thing was like somebody
Speaker 2: might die, and I was like, I don't really want
Speaker 2: to see that. But then when Dana White took it over,
Speaker 2: he made an effort to make it more mainstream, bringing
Speaker 2: more rules in and weight classes, and that was all great,
Speaker 2: and so I was there for the prime era of
Speaker 2: the UFC.
Speaker 1: Rowsy Connor McGregor.
Speaker 2: My favorite UFC fighter of all time Amna Nunez, who
Speaker 2: was the first champion who was also openly gay in
Speaker 2: any combat sport. So yeah, shout out to Aman in
Speaker 2: nunas the Lionus. And then at some point I started
Speaker 2: to just struggle with my UFC fandom. I think it
Speaker 2: happened around COVID because Dana White, who was clearly, you know,
Speaker 2: not a guy that I'd want to like hang out
Speaker 2: with or invite to my house, just through the struggles
Speaker 2: of COVID he did with a lot of people on
Speaker 2: the right did. They went super maga and super trumpy
Speaker 2: and super anti the left, even though COVID happened when
Speaker 2: his friend Donald Trump was president. So I don't know
Speaker 2: what had to do with the left, but all the
Speaker 2: COVID restrictions really put a b in Dana's bonnet, and
Speaker 2: so he's gone. He went super like maga. Not just Republican,
Speaker 2: but maga. He's also spoken in all three of Trump's
Speaker 2: Republican national conventions and calls Trump a friend, and you
Speaker 2: know that's not a good sign. And so I just
Speaker 2: started to like feel like, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: can support this sport with my dollars anymore, and I
Speaker 2: started to buy less and less fights. And then a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, on New Year's Eve, he famously
Speaker 2: was in a fight with his wife that was captured
Speaker 2: on video. They were in a nightclub somewhere and she
Speaker 2: slapped him and he slapped it right back, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'm out, And I knew I was
Speaker 2: right to be out because a lot of UFC fans
Speaker 2: were saying she hit him first. Yeah, that's that's how
Speaker 2: uh chivalry, being a gentleman works.
Speaker 1: My wife hit me. She had it coming.
Speaker 2: Oh, you guys are awful, and you're probably gonna be
Speaker 2: awful in the comments if you find this clip. And
Speaker 2: I had been one of the evangelists of the sport,
Speaker 2: one of the few left wing evangelists. Max's also a
Speaker 2: fan of a guy named Luke Thomas who's also a
Speaker 2: more left wing evangelist of the UFC. He's an MMA
Speaker 2: journalist and also a regular journalist. He's in my book
Speaker 2: Who Is Government? Luke's a great guy. Follow his work
Speaker 2: on YouTube. Luke Thomas gets a political also Morning Combat,
Speaker 2: which is a UFC show or his MMA show.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was like one of the few left wing
Speaker 2: UFC people. I knew, fans I knew, and I just like,
Speaker 2: I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't do it. And I understand that athletes don't
Speaker 2: always have your politics. That's fine, but they can't be
Speaker 2: anti my humanity or what I think is good in
Speaker 2: the world. They can't do that. Like recently some of
Speaker 2: the San Francisco giants on Pride Day war hats with
Speaker 2: Bible versus that were somehow saying we're not with Pride Day.
Speaker 2: So it's like, all right, well, I can't sit for
Speaker 2: a game of that. I get that we don't have
Speaker 2: to think the same way, but I can't have you
Speaker 2: poke in a stick in my face while I'm trying
Speaker 2: to enjoy your sport. So I just left it behind.
Speaker 2: But Dana White did not care. He didn't care. He
Speaker 2: figured out a way to keep the sport going. But
Speaker 2: I think day White knew he was losing some left
Speaker 2: wing fans. So in his new media deal, he didn't
Speaker 2: do a pay per view thing, because pay per view
Speaker 2: you do exactly who wants your sport. He signed with
Speaker 2: Paramount Plus, which is also the Ellisons, and so you
Speaker 2: don't have to pay for individual fights now they just
Speaker 2: come if you pay for Paramount Plus. So I think
Speaker 2: it's a way of hacking around on the idea of like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have to get you to pay for anymore.
Speaker 2: You'll just watch it because it's on your app. I
Speaker 2: did not watch it. And we all have been talking
Speaker 2: about the UFC recently because of the event that just
Speaker 2: happened over the past weekend, the UFC Freedom two fifty
Speaker 2: Raw Rah Kid RockA USA event that happened on the
Speaker 2: lawn of the White House that was supposed to be
Speaker 2: to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth Birthday of America
Speaker 2: but somehow ended up being moved to Donald Trump's birthday.
Speaker 2: And that event happened over the weekend, and if you
Speaker 2: read the reviews of it as a UFC event, people
Speaker 2: say it was a good UFC event, But if you
Speaker 2: read the reviews of it as a cultural event, it
Speaker 2: is pointing to everything wrong in America right now. In particular,
Speaker 2: one moment, a fighter named Josh Hokitt won his fight
Speaker 2: against Things fought. Derek lewis a black guy, which is
Speaker 2: not important, but there's not that many black guys in
Speaker 2: the UFC, so I mentioned it, so Josh Hokit, who
Speaker 2: is not a black guy, at the end of his
Speaker 2: fight when he was in the ring doing his winter speech,
Speaker 2: and Josh Hogen is sort of a he's doing like
Speaker 2: a bad version of Randy Mochellman Savage from the WWE.
Speaker 2: It's like a TMU Randy Mochellman Savage. Uh. He's given
Speaker 2: his speech and somebody he sort of runs out of
Speaker 2: steam and clearly just wants to get out of there.
Speaker 2: And so he turns to Joe Rogan who's interviewing him,
Speaker 2: and Joe was dressed like I think the way I
Speaker 2: could describe Joe, he was dressed like a like the
Speaker 2: junior used car salesman who needs to talk to the
Speaker 2: manager to decide if you're gonna get your undercoding. He
Speaker 2: was dressed like a like a majer d at a restaurant.
Speaker 2: That's not good anymore. So Josh Hog turns to Joe
Speaker 2: Rogan and says, uh, Michelle Obaum was a man right America,
Speaker 2: And the crowd cheers. And I heard this because I
Speaker 2: was paying attention to the fights through Luke Thomas's watch
Speaker 2: along and just through following it online. And I saw that.
Speaker 2: I was like what And I pulled it up and
Speaker 2: found the clip and that's what.
Speaker 1: The guy did.
Speaker 2: And to me, any any fin layer of belief that
Speaker 2: this was about, that this event was about that was
Speaker 2: nonpartisan and non political. Dana White kept saying it was
Speaker 2: non political, it was just the way to celebrate America.
Speaker 2: Even though Dana White is political and everything he does,
Speaker 2: he somehow seems to think he's not political. But at
Speaker 2: the same time he's spoken at all three Republican national conventions.
Speaker 2: He literally will say, I'm not into politics, but you
Speaker 2: spoke at three Republican national conventions. So any hint that
Speaker 2: this was not a toxic environment strewn with maga politics
Speaker 2: went away. When Josh Hogad said the thing about Michelle
Speaker 2: Obama that I don't want to repeat again. It sort
Speaker 2: of ties into last week why I really am anti
Speaker 2: and have to be loudly anti transphobia, because transphobia doesn't
Speaker 2: just hurt trans people, it hurts women overall, because anybody
Speaker 2: who's transphobic is going to use that as an attack
Speaker 2: on a woman they don't like. And Michelle Obama, who's
Speaker 2: just somewhere living her best life, having conversations on her
Speaker 2: podcast with her brother, just doing her own thing and
Speaker 2: has not ever tried to run for politics and has
Speaker 2: not been involved in politics since Obama left office, is
Speaker 2: being called a man on the lawn of the house
Speaker 2: she used to live in, and Joe Rogan just sat
Speaker 2: there and laughed, which really made me just feel like,
Speaker 2: fuck you, Joe Rogan. The Kevin Heart Roast the news
Speaker 2: story that will never end. Recently, Joe Rogan said, any
Speaker 2: comedian who criticized any comedian who made jokes with the
Speaker 2: Kevin Heart Roast, that comedian is a trader to comedy.
Speaker 2: And trader is such a funny word because traders normally
Speaker 2: use as the word you use when you're a trader
Speaker 2: to your country. And I would say, Joe Rogan, I'm
Speaker 2: fining to be a trader to comedy. Are you fining
Speaker 2: to be a trader to your country? Because that's what
Speaker 2: you're doing right now by glad handling Trump everywhere you
Speaker 2: go and letting this man slowly become the fascist of
Speaker 2: his dreams. You, Joe Rogan, are being a trader to
Speaker 2: your country. I'll take trader to comedy. Can you handle
Speaker 2: trader to your country? All right, let's breathe, let's relax.
Speaker 1: We got to clear the air.
Speaker 2: I gotta relax because my guest doesn't need all this
Speaker 2: bad ugliness in the air, because he is the amazing,
Speaker 2: the awesome, the incredible to be Biggs.
Speaker 1: Right now we're officially started.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 2: So thank you for doing my podcast, Thank you for
Speaker 2: having It's You're among the first conversations I've had for
Speaker 2: this podcast. So I when I was like, who can
Speaker 2: I reach out to? I want to come down to
Speaker 2: LA and do some episodes, and you were high on
Speaker 2: my list. And I was also like, who knows where
Speaker 2: that dude is in the world. You can be like
Speaker 2: I figured you'd say yes, but also was like he
Speaker 2: could be anywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4: But I'm always trying to be home, so like it's
Speaker 4: good if you're doing so of the NLA. It's a
Speaker 4: really like good choice to try and hit me, like
Speaker 4: get me to do something here because I'm trying to
Speaker 4: be here.
Speaker 2: Okay, I start every episode of by giving people their flowers.
Speaker 2: I feel like in the hectic world that we're in
Speaker 2: and the thing's going on and I'm and I'm booking
Speaker 2: people who I really admire and want to talked to
Speaker 2: for an hour, so it's not like it's not yet
Speaker 2: just like, well I got to book you because we
Speaker 2: got a slot, so it really important to me to
Speaker 2: like book people, and so certainly. I've appreciate how like
Speaker 2: how you have come into my life. Like when I
Speaker 2: it was when I moved back to the Bay Area
Speaker 2: with my wife and Melissa, who you know, was pregnant
Speaker 2: with our second kid, our second daughter. I was between jobs,
Speaker 2: so I didn't really know what was happening when things
Speaker 2: were going on, and that I was working on the
Speaker 2: United Shades, and I was really like had decided, we
Speaker 2: decided to make our life in the East Bay. At
Speaker 2: that point, we were living in Berkeley, but we always
Speaker 2: wanted to get to Oakland. But we decided we're not
Speaker 2: going to live in LA or New York. We're going
Speaker 2: to be here. And when you and Rafa reached out
Speaker 2: about blind spotting, I remember getting the call like they
Speaker 2: got these guys want you to do this thing.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, and then they're like, they
Speaker 1: want to talk to you on the phone. Do you
Speaker 1: remember this. You guys were like, we want to talk to.
Speaker 3: You on the I remember talking to you on the phone.
Speaker 1: It was like a meet. They were like, they want
Speaker 1: to talk to you on the phone, was what it
Speaker 1: was said to me. I was like, okay.
Speaker 2: Before I moderated and you both just sort of let
Speaker 2: me know that, no, we know who you are, which
Speaker 2: I appreciated.
Speaker 4: It was such a that everything associated with that film
Speaker 4: was like a wild experience for us because we had
Speaker 4: yet to work in Hollywood at all, really, so we
Speaker 4: didn't know how these things actually work. But it was
Speaker 4: you know, we kept being like, we want everybody to
Speaker 4: know how intentional this is for us, you know, like
Speaker 4: this is not a part of this that's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that would be cool. It was like, no, this is
Speaker 4: who we want to do this and you were like,
Speaker 4: what it would be awesome if Kamal did this, Like
Speaker 4: this would be amazing.
Speaker 2: And for me, I was still in this spot. I
Speaker 2: mean I still in this spot, but I was in
Speaker 2: the spot of like, I know, I'm working hard, I'm
Speaker 2: doing doing things, but I don't know if you know
Speaker 2: who's seeing it, or who's aware of it, or who
Speaker 2: is who or who even or maybe people see it
Speaker 2: but don't like it, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: sort of put my head down and like I'm going
Speaker 2: to do the work. Especially then, so the fact that
Speaker 2: I think you all told me that you'd seen me
Speaker 2: at the punch line back in the day, Yeah, which
Speaker 2: I was when it's the club that I came up
Speaker 2: at in San Francisco. So I just appreciate you too,
Speaker 2: and you how intentional you all are about your life
Speaker 2: and your work and connecting those things, and how when
Speaker 2: I when I look at you, like I said when
Speaker 2: I reached out for you the podcast, like this dude,
Speaker 2: I just saw him on stage in Berkeley with clipping like,
Speaker 2: you know, wrapping his ass off madness. Yeah, I had
Speaker 2: opened my eagle on yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, So I just
Speaker 1: I just saw you.
Speaker 2: Then I'm watching you on my phone in a in
Speaker 2: the new clip from the Boys, like there's a very
Speaker 2: proof like there he is, yeah yeah yeah. And then
Speaker 2: and then as I sit down today, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: another movie's coming out, Yeah yeah, a Magic Hour.
Speaker 4: Magic Hour Yeah yeah, which I'm I'm that's one of
Speaker 4: those ones, like amazing that it's gonna have a theatrical release,
Speaker 4: very independent, yeah, very yeah.
Speaker 3: So I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 2: Looking at the clip, looks like the movie is like,
Speaker 2: is this the movie that me and my wife can
Speaker 2: go to or should we see separately of those intense
Speaker 2: marriage movies where you're like.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I think it's a can though. It's
Speaker 4: very pro marriage. Okay, it's very pro forgiveness. It's very Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember I went and saw Eternal Sunshine of the
Speaker 2: spotless uh spotless mind with my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 2: and I watched someone go I think we got to
Speaker 2: break up.
Speaker 1: I don't get this from you. I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: feel this.
Speaker 3: Where's the support, I'm not so.
Speaker 2: I just want to be careful about those things. But
Speaker 2: I just see you like busting your ass all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I appreciate that. I mean, yes, sort of.
Speaker 2: I mean we all waste time behind the scenes, and
Speaker 2: we all we all like have days we can't get
Speaker 2: out of bed. I'm not saying that you no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: but I just but I just want to be clear,
Speaker 2: like and again to take these flowers.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not accepting. I'm trying to be and you
Speaker 3: can you can elaborate.
Speaker 2: But I do see like sometimes there's people like I
Speaker 2: look at your I get he's he's.
Speaker 1: Good at a lot of things. Just take it.
Speaker 2: He's good a lot of things. But he doesn't have
Speaker 2: to do all these things. He doesn't need to be
Speaker 2: here in Berkeley, wrapping his ass off with clipping and
Speaker 2: he could be at home, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, he could be he you know, I see
Speaker 2: you like I just see you in being in a
Speaker 2: lot of spaces and and you do all of those spaces.
Speaker 2: And I really appreciate like it models like intentional work ethic,
Speaker 2: but also the kind of like approach to this business
Speaker 2: that is like on some level we're all just like
Speaker 2: some of us are just plumbers making the donuts, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, not that plumbers should make donuts,
Speaker 2: but you know what I mean, the idea of like
Speaker 2: we're just doing the work that's in front of us.
Speaker 3: It's crazy, but yeah, you know, yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 4: I mean to a certain degree, I do have to
Speaker 4: do all of those things because I don't know how
Speaker 4: to function otherwise, you know, like I don't ye the
Speaker 4: Bay Arean is of it all is that is that
Speaker 4: thing where we just do things. We have to make things,
Speaker 4: and a lot of the way the business side of
Speaker 4: this works is you end up waiting to make things.
Speaker 3: You end up like waiting for permission to make things.
Speaker 4: And I don't know how to feel like a person
Speaker 4: when I'm doing that. At the same time, like and
Speaker 4: this is you know, I admire you a lot in
Speaker 4: this too, because like I'm trying. I'm new to this
Speaker 4: dad business and I'm like always trying to be with him,
Speaker 4: so anything that takes me away from him, I am
Speaker 4: like I'm like very nervous about and I'm always trying
Speaker 4: to minimize and like how quickly can I get in
Speaker 4: and get out? But I still like need to do it.
Speaker 4: You know, the amount of like serious discussions me and
Speaker 4: my wife Abby I have had to have about like
Speaker 4: I know this doesn't bring in any money and I
Speaker 4: know like where she's never getting out. It's like me
Speaker 4: apologizing beforehand, like I'm so sorry, but I just I
Speaker 4: have to go do this rap show.
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, and it's a real rap show.
Speaker 2: It's not like it doesn't there's nothing about clipping that
Speaker 2: feels like it's like a hobby. It feels like this
Speaker 2: is and you know, I saw the tiny desk and
Speaker 2: I've and listened to the music and it's like there's
Speaker 2: in an alternate timeline, this is just who you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you're just that guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I still kind of think of myself as
Speaker 4: that guy. I don't know, like, yeah, I'm just like
Speaker 4: I in the you know, around twenty two thousand and
Speaker 4: nine or something eight something like that, Like I made
Speaker 4: a very conscious decision to start identifying as a rapper,
Speaker 4: you know, because I was like, I otherwise, how can
Speaker 4: I say that I am? You know, like it was
Speaker 4: the thing I had been doing for longer than anything else.
Speaker 4: I wasn't making any money from anywhere at the time,
Speaker 4: so it was just like, well, what's the thing that
Speaker 4: And I had.
Speaker 3: To be like, well, what do I love if I
Speaker 3: you know, what is what is the thing? I want?
Speaker 4: To be honest, I want to make these rap songs.
Speaker 4: I want to go all over the world playing raps.
Speaker 4: I'm a rapper. I was saying that in public, which
Speaker 4: is a crazy thing for like a young black men
Speaker 4: to just especially like without a deal and with no
Speaker 4: like evidence that that's working. But just like you know,
Speaker 4: show it up in my ninety seven Honda Civic being like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm a rapper.
Speaker 3: I'm a crazy thing to do.
Speaker 4: But I so anyway, that was such a choice that
Speaker 4: it's a thing that I still I still very much
Speaker 4: identify as.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and I would imagine, like you said in
Speaker 2: the bay, there's just a let's make some stuff yeah,
Speaker 2: and sort of let's make some stuff without almost without
Speaker 2: regards often to profit or or market.
Speaker 1: Uh whether the market needs this thing.
Speaker 4: They know, because we don't know how, right, like who
Speaker 4: there's no industry there, which is it's a wild place
Speaker 4: in hindsight to be such a robust like arts forward
Speaker 4: place where there isn't an industry behind it. So all
Speaker 4: of us are just making it and like figure and
Speaker 4: making the time to make it and figuring out how
Speaker 4: to work other jobs and make it. And that's just
Speaker 4: what you do because like art is necessary and we
Speaker 4: make art and so yeah that yeah, so that that's
Speaker 4: just part of the thing. And I have so I
Speaker 4: was just thinking about this today, like I have a
Speaker 4: lot of I have hired people and also keep other
Speaker 4: people around me who are concerned with product right because
Speaker 4: I don't even know how.
Speaker 1: Oh you need people who are like that's a good unit.
Speaker 1: We can sell that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean not in a cynical way, but
Speaker 2: in like a this is a capitalistic society we live in.
Speaker 2: You have made a good unit that we can this
Speaker 2: is a good thing we can do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or even you know, even in films like this,
Speaker 4: I am such a process guy that I don't you know,
Speaker 4: if I see a thing that's like, this is a
Speaker 4: really interesting script I would like to do.
Speaker 3: That's all I need to want to do it.
Speaker 4: And other people can advise me like that's gonna tank,
Speaker 4: that's not or this is whatever. Ultimately I can decide
Speaker 4: to do it, even like while shooting, somebody to tell
Speaker 4: me that's what directors are for. I'm so interested in
Speaker 4: the process. I'll do a thousand takes of a scene.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 4: You got to tell me when it's done. I'm going
Speaker 4: to keep trying something new. I'm having a great time here,
Speaker 4: you know, So like you tell me when you got it,
Speaker 4: because I don't know. I'm just out here.
Speaker 1: I'm just out here doing it.
Speaker 3: I'm just out here.
Speaker 2: You're out here, like do the thing and let the
Speaker 2: director go, oh there it was great. I'm glad to
Speaker 2: know that where it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I put a lot of trust in my
Speaker 4: collaborators in that way. Like my you know, if when
Speaker 4: I know what my role on a on a particular
Speaker 4: project is, my role here is as actor.
Speaker 3: Great, That's what I'm doing. I have to learn the
Speaker 3: lines and say the lines.
Speaker 4: Those are my parameters and like I'm gonna do as
Speaker 4: much as I can within that is everybody else. You
Speaker 4: tell me when I'm lit, you tell me if my
Speaker 4: hair is out of place, you tell I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: look at the screen.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 4: He's like, my job is to be honest, try to
Speaker 4: find these moments of honesty. Like that's it, and I'll
Speaker 4: as many chances as you want to give me to
Speaker 4: do that. Cool if you're losing light and we got
Speaker 4: to move on, cool, you know, Like that's what it is.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if it's intentional, but I mean
Speaker 2: it's sort of connected to like you just want to
Speaker 2: work and do things, but you're just a person who
Speaker 2: also it has no problem appearing and like you said,
Speaker 2: a small independent film on stage doing you know, how
Speaker 2: would you declibe clipping is where's their role?
Speaker 1: And rap and hip hop? What is the you know?
Speaker 1: I talked to Mike Eglist day.
Speaker 2: He was like, I called myself art raps isn't working
Speaker 2: more so, I was like, I say indie rap because
Speaker 2: it sort of describes the entire thing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we'll just put ourselves there. I don't We've
Speaker 4: always just called ourselves rap music. It was like very
Speaker 4: intentionally track because when we first came along, it was
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of the commentary around us
Speaker 4: was like like I don't like rap, but I like this,
Speaker 4: or like this isn't like what rap is like, and
Speaker 4: we kept so we started being very intentional about this
Speaker 4: is just rap.
Speaker 3: We're not actually doing anything new.
Speaker 4: We are taking all of the traditions that we have
Speaker 4: learned from being lifelong like practitioners and fans of this
Speaker 4: culture of music and making the thing.
Speaker 3: That we do.
Speaker 4: So so I've always just called I just.
Speaker 1: You're not an anti rap. You post post rap.
Speaker 4: Not post rap, node nothing. Yeah, it's all it's all
Speaker 4: rap music.
Speaker 2: So but yeah, just to get back to the questions,
Speaker 2: like I see you like this is like what I
Speaker 2: would define is like like this hardcore rap outfit rap group.
Speaker 2: You're doing independent movies and then but you're also I'm
Speaker 2: not shocked at all to see you pop up in
Speaker 2: something big and loud and commercial like The Boys. That
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like Deviata is supposed to be independent. There's
Speaker 2: a time when people sort of put those labels on people,
Speaker 2: like you're not supposed to be doing that, you'd Parker posey,
Speaker 2: what are you doing in the movie. And I don't
Speaker 2: feel like with you that I see you as being like,
Speaker 2: oh that's I feel like, no, that's perfect for him,
Speaker 2: and I'm happy for him and I can't wait to
Speaker 2: see what he does in that space.
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I think that those.
Speaker 4: That kind of sectioning off is sort of disappearing in
Speaker 4: some ways, you know. I'm I think we've we as
Speaker 4: fans as audience, have become so much more aware of
Speaker 4: the business side of it than we were before and
Speaker 4: how hard it is to make money doing art. So
Speaker 4: like I don't know, generally for me, any actor I
Speaker 4: see in a big thing that it looks like they
Speaker 4: got paid a lot for Like I'm very.
Speaker 1: Happy for man, that guy got insurance. You know, he's
Speaker 1: got an insurance cover for the whole year.
Speaker 4: And you know, Mike Eagle Song gets a placement in
Speaker 4: a on a Netflix movie. Hell yeah, like that's yes,
Speaker 4: I know you didn't get paid enough for that, but
Speaker 4: like I hope you did, like you know, so yeah,
Speaker 4: but I do, you know. I mean, the jump off
Speaker 4: for me was Hamilton and It and it was the
Speaker 4: most popular thing in a very long time, but it
Speaker 4: was still for me, it was me and my friends
Speaker 4: making something dumb, right, So like that it was so
Speaker 4: the only process I know.
Speaker 3: It's all part of the same as the same process.
Speaker 4: Oh, these people are people I trust, Like, these are
Speaker 4: artists I enjoy working with. This is an idea that
Speaker 4: I don't know if it works or not. It's a big,
Speaker 4: a big thing for me on everything. It's like if
Speaker 4: I'm the most attractive thing for me is to not
Speaker 4: know if it's gonna work because I need the experiment
Speaker 4: of it. I need the excitement of being like, wow,
Speaker 4: this is a big swing or what could we possibly
Speaker 4: be doing here, you know, being halfway through and me
Speaker 4: like this is a failure. You know, I kind of
Speaker 4: need that juice. So yeah, and so it just but
Speaker 4: because I think I have benefited in many ways because
Speaker 4: of that being my sort of entry to the more
Speaker 4: mainstream world in that for me, it was still that
Speaker 4: exact same modality of working, but but it became this phenomenon.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was just pop art, you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I don't want to spend too
Speaker 2: much time with that because I know you've talked about
Speaker 2: Hamilton a lot, but I do I don't actually know
Speaker 2: the origin story of you and lin Manuel coming across
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've talked about before.
Speaker 3: But how do you just freestyle of Supreme?
Speaker 1: Okay, just a hip hop collective?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so we were rapping like yeah yeah and
Speaker 4: a yeah and a funny clerical error but.
Speaker 3: And so on. Some bas I told the story before too,
Speaker 3: so you cut it out of the thing. But like, it's.
Speaker 4: Me and Anthony VININCIALI was another founding member Freestyle. I
Speaker 4: was living in San Francisco. We were both due to
Speaker 4: a clerical error called the substitute teach the same class
Speaker 4: in Marine City, and so we show up. It's like
Speaker 4: a first grade class or something. You have to come
Speaker 4: up with something new to do with these kids every
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes. I guess we're both getting paid today, so
Speaker 4: we're both gonna do this. Yeah, And at some point
Speaker 4: we just start freestyling with the kid. He's like, do
Speaker 4: you do you freestyle?
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 4: He was like, great, this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be boxing. We do this, and we did
Speaker 4: that for half an hour. Really worked out.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think his wife's car broken down or something, so
Speaker 4: I gave him a ride home to San Francisco, and
Speaker 4: he we started talking and he was like, I'm part
Speaker 4: of this group freestyle of a pre of my friend Lynn.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know him, he's like whatever,
Speaker 4: he's about to do a show on Broadway called in
Speaker 4: the Heights. That I have no idea of anything that
Speaker 4: you're talking about, but whatever. So but it was that's
Speaker 4: how I know those guys say that we became friends.
Speaker 2: And then I've become more fascinating recently with just the
Speaker 2: idea of sliding doors and butterfly effect and the idea
Speaker 2: that like that, doesn't you know that's a that's a yeah,
Speaker 2: your whole life goes a different direction if you maybe
Speaker 2: like you still an actor, you're still rapping, but you're
Speaker 2: not necessarily in Hamilton.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm almost certainly not. I don't know how, you
Speaker 4: know how I would have met those cats otherwise. And
Speaker 4: it's yeah, that that is particularly crazy, especially because like
Speaker 4: if anyone who's been a substitute teachers, not a lot
Speaker 4: of great opportunities to come.
Speaker 2: Out of it, a lot of life changing and after
Speaker 2: I substitute talk Yeah, yeah, those things and forget I
Speaker 2: tripped over a billion dollars, and I was like, there's
Speaker 2: a billion dollars here.
Speaker 1: I just thank god I substitute taught today. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's so I want to give you just this is,
Speaker 2: uh how like my Hamilton, how I've seen Hamilton from
Speaker 2: the outside, because that ends in a very personal way.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we wouldn't necessarily talk about it. But like, I'm
Speaker 2: a person who like I was living in Oakland when
Speaker 2: Hamilton hit, and all I knew about Hamilton was that
Speaker 2: people in New York Twitter were like raving over Like
Speaker 2: that was like when Twitter was Twitter, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: and Twitter was talking about Hamilton.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I didn't know if I was
Speaker 2: ever gonna see it. My wife's a big Broadway person,
Speaker 2: but we were not in a position to go to
Speaker 2: Broadway and see these things. So I just and then
Speaker 2: I remember, and then it like then it tours, and
Speaker 2: then more people start to see it, and then my
Speaker 2: wife starts to see it, and then it becomes Hamilton
Speaker 2: and it's everywhere and everybody's talking about it, uh pandemic
Speaker 2: it airs on Disney Plus and then the Hamilton discourse begins.
Speaker 2: And I sort of had this feeling that because my
Speaker 2: wife loves Broadway that like, I don't know that Broadways
Speaker 2: for everybody, Like I think that, like there's a reason
Speaker 2: why it's in New York and the people who want
Speaker 2: to see it go see it. I agree, and that
Speaker 2: like I feel like you can basically discourse every Broadway
Speaker 2: play because it's just it's just. And I know if
Speaker 2: it's a Broadway it's just it's it's about there's a
Speaker 2: lot of suspension of disbelief that happens when you go
Speaker 2: into a theater, like a Broadway theater, and why is
Speaker 2: everybody singing at me?
Speaker 1: You know, why is it? Why are there? Why isn't there?
Speaker 1: There's why isn't there that?
Speaker 2: But so the Hamilton discourse starts, which you know, which
Speaker 2: we don't have to get into, but it's just about
Speaker 2: like is this thing is? Is this thing the thing
Speaker 2: that it is? Or is it not the thing that
Speaker 2: it is? And how why would you do the thing
Speaker 2: this way? And D D D dad and all these things.
Speaker 2: And I remember seeing that Hamilton discourse and being like
Speaker 2: at the time, knowing you and be like, man, it's
Speaker 2: not his play, but he's in the middle of this
Speaker 2: and sort of feeling like how does it feel to
Speaker 2: be in the middle of this and sort of like
Speaker 2: and then everybody and then it feels like that happened,
Speaker 2: you know, we also in the pandemic and we all
Speaker 2: and then we sort of come back, and then then
Speaker 2: you all are at the Tonys and it's suddenly like
Speaker 2: it's okay.
Speaker 3: Ten years will do a lot like we're back, we're.
Speaker 1: Maybe, and we're celebrating the anniversary.
Speaker 2: My favorite moment of the Tonys is when you you
Speaker 2: did that jump. I was watching with my daughter and
Speaker 2: she heard me go.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I got text from everybody I know like
Speaker 3: are you okay? You're okay? I think I might have
Speaker 3: said my niece.
Speaker 4: Literally, I don't think I've ever gotten more reach outs
Speaker 4: like for anything.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was just like I watched it several times because
Speaker 2: I was like, I couldn't pull that off even at
Speaker 2: my best, my most athletic day of my life, but
Speaker 2: like that was truly impressed.
Speaker 4: I got separate phone calls before, you know, when we
Speaker 4: had decided to do that, from both Lynn and Andy
Speaker 4: the choreographer, both reached out like separately being like, can
Speaker 4: you jump off a table? I was like, I can't
Speaker 4: do it. Eight times a week but I could. I
Speaker 4: could probably get it up one time. There's and that
Speaker 4: is something about you that that I was respect you.
Speaker 2: There's an athletic, kinetic nature about you as an actor
Speaker 2: that is just that is also a part of your
Speaker 2: that seems to be a part of your process.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I you know, I came up running track,
Speaker 4: and so you know, from when I was nine till
Speaker 4: post colle ran all the way through college and was
Speaker 4: trying thought I might be able to make the trials
Speaker 4: or something after college.
Speaker 3: I was really it was really.
Speaker 4: Important to me and it is still the thing that
Speaker 4: I miss the most is that that, you know, I
Speaker 4: think most former athletes have this this thing where you
Speaker 4: just there was a kind of especially for me, where
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm you know, I'm a pretty I'm a
Speaker 4: I'm a relatively shy person. I'm like not, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm I play a lot of boisterous characters or I'm
Speaker 4: really that way in my life. It was a way
Speaker 4: to just quietly walk around and feel superior to and
Speaker 4: it's like you have this superpower. I can run really
Speaker 4: fast and I like jump over these I was a hurdler,
Speaker 4: so like I could also do this kind of like
Speaker 4: weird timing, technical flexibility thing that like you know, is
Speaker 4: useless probably in life, especially giving it.
Speaker 1: Gets over there quickly.
Speaker 4: But there's a bunch of you know, especially with my
Speaker 4: life choices, I'm running from the police or anything like that. Like,
Speaker 4: but but it was just nice you had that thing,
Speaker 4: and that just like all physical things goes away with age,
Speaker 4: you know. And so when I get those opportunities to
Speaker 4: do that on on shows or in TV work or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm always annoying my stump performer by being
Speaker 4: like how much you go let me do?
Speaker 3: Like can you can you teach me that thing? Like
Speaker 3: when we better if I died that thing.
Speaker 1: Because then you can you get the camera right.
Speaker 2: So to wrap up the Hamilton discourse, that just about
Speaker 2: seeing you, Tony's the reason why my daughter.
Speaker 1: Was watching it, My my Juno.
Speaker 2: She's now twelve at the time, she's probably ten because
Speaker 2: she became a kid who fell into Broadway and fell
Speaker 2: into Hamilton. And then I'd be walking around my house
Speaker 2: and here a ten year old be like, how goes
Speaker 2: the best? And it was just like, I don't care
Speaker 2: what anybody said. This thing is is like I just
Speaker 2: was like it was just so cool to see it
Speaker 2: in my life come full circle and come around like
Speaker 2: now I got this ten year old who is wrapping
Speaker 2: to herself in her bedroom lyrics from Hamilton.
Speaker 3: It's wild.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a I never know whether to apologize her
Speaker 4: parents or to.
Speaker 2: There are creators who need to apologize. Are you involved
Speaker 2: in Coco Melon because Yeah.
Speaker 4: What's funny is we were at clipping was asked to
Speaker 4: contribute to sorry to Cocomelon, and we were all like,
Speaker 4: absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I can don't even understand how that would work.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we made Puppy ver Hanka, so
Speaker 3: we have some Yeah, but I.
Speaker 2: Did, But Cocomelons anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. But
Speaker 2: like luckily my seven year old who was the Cocomela
Speaker 2: and fiend is out of it for several years. But
Speaker 2: it was a I don't have I don't, I don't,
Speaker 2: you don't. You don't need apologize for Hamilton. There's other
Speaker 2: things I would like to talk to people about, to
Speaker 2: other other child creators. So for me just to see
Speaker 2: it as an inroads for this ten year old to
Speaker 2: like music and to hip hop, yeah, was like I
Speaker 2: think it's just like becomes like That's that's what you
Speaker 2: want right there, right.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a pretty wild you know, that's not
Speaker 4: what we thought we were doing, I don't think, but sure,
Speaker 4: it's amazing that that's happened. Well, the thing that it
Speaker 4: did is just the thing that Lynn is, which is
Speaker 4: like a person who exists at the intersection of exactly
Speaker 4: those things that there are, a history buff who is
Speaker 4: as knowledgeable about Broadway as he is about rap music
Speaker 4: and and so that it's like this show is just
Speaker 4: like the intersection of the things he loves. And that's
Speaker 4: he's a pretty like unique, fascinating person. But he's so
Speaker 4: kind of his you see this when you see him,
Speaker 4: when you see him speak publicly or whatever. His gift
Speaker 4: is that he lets everybody into its very and that
Speaker 4: that was it there. These are actually sort of three
Speaker 4: spheres that always feel incredibly gate kept right, and he
Speaker 4: was just like.
Speaker 3: Or or the everybody could just walk in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I just wanted to give you my
Speaker 2: this is my my Hamilton, the arc of my Hamilton
Speaker 2: relationship based on my twelve year old who's very excited
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you. The other thing that I when
Speaker 2: I think about you is just public displays of men
Speaker 2: in community. Men who are friends is such a cool thing,
Speaker 2: like dudes who have each other's backs all the time
Speaker 2: and don't so you and Rafa is like this as
Speaker 2: this sort of like one of the most exactly one
Speaker 2: of the most adorable things being Kelly Rafferty, who was
Speaker 2: who worked with me for years when we discovered the
Speaker 2: Calvin and Hobbes videos, you guys did. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just like it's like they're so sweet and so sacrid
Speaker 2: and so underrated. Like I feel like I just want
Speaker 2: if anything can happen on this podcast, I need people
Speaker 2: to go watch those videos.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they're not too many because I'll just get
Speaker 4: taken out.
Speaker 2: I don't think the calviny, I don't think he's that
Speaker 2: worried about it. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, but anyway, I
Speaker 2: don't want to I don't want to get him. But anyway,
Speaker 2: just talk about being uh that this is you know,
Speaker 2: we all have this, many of us be friends with
Speaker 2: somebody in high school, like we're going to be friends
Speaker 2: forever or we're gonna do things forever, and then you know,
Speaker 2: things don't happen that way. Talk about being friends for
Speaker 2: a long time, publicly professionally and continually.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean Rafa so we you know, we
Speaker 4: actually we knew each other and high school, but we
Speaker 4: uh we actually didn't start really hanging out very much.
Speaker 4: So I was a little bit older than he was
Speaker 4: until I got back from college. So it's like two
Speaker 4: thousand and four, and uh, one of my best friends
Speaker 4: his little brothers the same classes as Rafael and were
Speaker 4: they were very good friends.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 4: Raphael at whatever he was at the time, eighteen years old,
Speaker 4: nineteen years old, was already running a recording studio in
Speaker 4: North Oakland, and and my friend.
Speaker 3: Justin was like, you gotta go, you should go. You
Speaker 3: guys got you know, you guys go ahead.
Speaker 4: So we got like set up on a rapper play
Speaker 4: date basically and that and that was it. Like we
Speaker 4: stayed up till four in the morning that first night.
Speaker 4: I was there making a song and we got in
Speaker 4: the car and we listened to the song because that's
Speaker 4: as is the custom. And then uh, then I was
Speaker 4: there pretty much every night. I have probably spoken to
Speaker 4: him almost every day since then, Eida, But it was
Speaker 4: it's just yeah, it's crazy when you I think, especially
Speaker 4: at that age early twenties, you know, when you're really
Speaker 4: trying to figure it out. And if you're an artist
Speaker 4: and you find someone you click with artistically, that's incredibly valuable.
Speaker 3: That person also becomes somebody who.
Speaker 4: You trust, who you're you're making mistakes together and growing
Speaker 4: up together, and you know, has your back and has
Speaker 4: seeing you at your worst and is still there and
Speaker 4: get forces you to celebrate your wins. Like Rafa is
Speaker 4: so good with that for me, because I'm not a
Speaker 4: celebration type and he, for my whole life, has always
Speaker 4: been like try to eat.
Speaker 1: Me flowers and you're like, I know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: But he's he's yeah, he has always been the one
Speaker 4: who's like, we gotta let's acknowledge it. Who knows how
Speaker 4: many of these we get, you know, so he's he's
Speaker 4: one of those.
Speaker 3: And so it's.
Speaker 4: It's interesting, we're, uh, we're writing another film together right now,
Speaker 4: and it is kind of about the how that kind
Speaker 4: of a friendship ages and what happens, you know, when.
Speaker 3: Kids get them all on the study, you know, like
Speaker 3: just yeah, what you know we made?
Speaker 4: Blind Spotting is essentially about like a you know, young man,
Speaker 4: late twenties, right, that kind of male friendship, and now
Speaker 4: what's what's a forties male friendship? Like, like you know,
Speaker 4: and what are those changes and how do you know,
Speaker 4: how do those things grow together?
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 4: I think to me, what's interesting about it is it's
Speaker 4: both absolutely effortless and also incredibly intentional.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, when you're in your forties. I don't
Speaker 2: know if this is true for women. As a man,
Speaker 2: you have to be intentional to stay friends with your men,
Speaker 2: friends anybody, Yeah, because it just sort of, yeah, are
Speaker 2: with your friends because it can just easy because you
Speaker 2: get so caught up in whatever your life is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they like I don't even talk to that dude anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, when your life just
Speaker 4: stopped involving friends like as a necessary part of life,
Speaker 4: it kind of does.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's some ways. So yeah, it has to be intentional.
Speaker 4: But I mean even all of our you know, starting
Speaker 4: to when we were working together when when blind spoting happened,
Speaker 4: and it happened after Hamilton and so there was like
Speaker 4: for two people actually honestly in the bay when we
Speaker 4: were making rap songs, like Rafa was kind of the
Speaker 4: famous one, so he had the deaf poetry thing going. Honestly,
Speaker 4: he had like a huge YouTube following. He was the
Speaker 4: one who was able to book shows out of town
Speaker 4: and he would always bring us a lot. Was always like,
Speaker 4: you know, so he was the one opening door so
Speaker 4: everybody could run through. And then this this thing happened.
Speaker 4: Now like the sort of balance had shifted the other way.
Speaker 4: People knew my name, wanted to talk to me, and
Speaker 4: like navigating those kinds of things. And then now you're
Speaker 4: adding agents and managers and stuff on top of that,
Speaker 4: who like don't understand the history of it and who
Speaker 4: you know? There are so many hard conversations that had
Speaker 4: to be had.
Speaker 1: Well like I know you suggest Draffa, but who else
Speaker 1: should we look at?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like literally nobody, but also know, hard conversations them
Speaker 4: hard conversations with each other about you know, we've we've
Speaker 4: had to we've developed a pretty good muscle now for
Speaker 4: on projects that we're working on together, like sitting down
Speaker 4: really before we even get into it and being like,
Speaker 4: what is important to you about this and what's important
Speaker 4: to me about this, and let's get really clear on that.
Speaker 4: What are non negotiables so that when all the bullshit
Speaker 4: starts happening, it's going to happen like we can. We
Speaker 4: can know that, like we are satisfying these things and
Speaker 4: we get we get that really clear.
Speaker 1: Before like what do we both want out of this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that when the when all the crazy, when all
Speaker 2: the show is nonsense happens, we can remember, well, I
Speaker 2: just need this and you need.
Speaker 4: That, right because you know, when you start, especially with us,
Speaker 4: when you start talking about like who wrote what or
Speaker 4: whose idea.
Speaker 3: Is, it's like, not what are you talking about? Like
Speaker 3: that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: It's like Lennon McCartney, we were both there talking about it.
Speaker 4: We sit down and we eat food, and then like
Speaker 4: you know, a year later there's a thing. But it's
Speaker 4: so yeah, we've had to realize that, and this word
Speaker 4: the Hollywood business is very much about dividing those things
Speaker 4: up and being like credit, the credit is what you need,
Speaker 4: and so we tend to decide early on, like what's
Speaker 4: the credit you need from this?
Speaker 3: Bro?
Speaker 4: Like what's the what do we say? Obviously it doesn't matter,
Speaker 4: like the work doesn't matter. We're going to do what
Speaker 4: we do. What what what do you need.
Speaker 1: Out of this?
Speaker 4: Or what do I need out of this? Okay, let's
Speaker 4: do that let's make that happen. Let's send the teams
Speaker 4: off to accomplish that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would.
Speaker 2: That's the part about it that is so remarkable to
Speaker 2: me because once the as you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: being a person who's also a rapper, the money has
Speaker 2: broken up a lot of friends in a wrapper, It's
Speaker 2: broken up a lot of crews, like a lot of
Speaker 2: boys falling apart over money.
Speaker 3: That's true. Ours, maybe ours didn't come from rap.
Speaker 2: But just I would imagine that there's probably it's got
Speaker 2: to be certain times where you have to sort of
Speaker 2: go stop, let's talk about this, because the would you
Speaker 2: want to prioritize the friendship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely.
Speaker 4: It turns out that these yeah, having relationships for that long,
Speaker 4: you have to talk things out. Yeah, stuff does get weird,
Speaker 4: you know, and stuff and time passes and you don't know.
Speaker 4: You go from when you're young and you're just hanging
Speaker 4: out in studios or whatever. You spend all you know,
Speaker 4: most of your free time is together, so you don't
Speaker 4: actually have to have those check ins.
Speaker 3: I just saw you and I'll see you again.
Speaker 2: And you're and you're also now if you two are working,
Speaker 2: there's not a sense of like We'll just do this
Speaker 2: until four in the morning, because I got a kid.
Speaker 4: Nothing until four in the morning. She's up at six.
Speaker 4: I'm like yeah, but yeah, and we work. You know,
Speaker 4: he's off shooting a TV show right now. So also,
Speaker 4: like geographically, we're just spread out and time is different.
Speaker 4: So it's just yeah with the clipping stuff too, Like
Speaker 4: finding time to record now is crazy. When I first
Speaker 4: moved to we started that band in twenty like eleven,
Speaker 4: when I first came down to LA and it's very
Speaker 4: easy to spend all day at Gionathan's house making songs.
Speaker 3: I didn't have anything else to do. Literally, my calendar.
Speaker 1: Was free, like my Google calendar. Yep. I'm free for
Speaker 1: the till the end of time.
Speaker 3: Currently, I've got nothing going on.
Speaker 2: Has there been have you guys been like you said,
Speaker 2: I there's a point when early in relationship where Rafa
Speaker 2: is like the big dog or the more prominent one,
Speaker 2: and then you you're after Hamilton.
Speaker 1: Is there is there any tension?
Speaker 2: There is there any sort of like guilt survivors You
Speaker 2: know that the I deal with a lot.
Speaker 4: Of survivors guilt, but not with that relationship. Really, I
Speaker 4: think the tension is always from it's not from within
Speaker 4: the relationship, right, it's always from outside, But it's always
Speaker 4: it's and it is often like I, how do I
Speaker 4: where it has been with me? And Rabbit's not really
Speaker 4: like this now. But at some points early on it
Speaker 4: was like, well, how what can I do to even
Speaker 4: this out? Because there's no way I can get the
Speaker 4: thing isn't out yet, right, there's no way that I
Speaker 4: can get them to see it. So what's the what's
Speaker 4: the thing that I can do the level this playing
Speaker 4: field or something?
Speaker 1: What do you mean the thing isn't out yet.
Speaker 4: Like when we were making blind spoting or whatever, you know,
Speaker 4: for example, like trying to get.
Speaker 3: That once this comes out, I think it's very obvious that.
Speaker 1: We're a duo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but right now it's not here. But so you're
Speaker 2: feeling I'm doing half the work, but the world sees
Speaker 2: you as being the guy. Yeah, I want you to
Speaker 2: feel like I value your input into this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I used to worry about that a lot more,
Speaker 4: but we've we've gotten pretty good at it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: talk about being a dead is the best thing I've
Speaker 4: ever done.
Speaker 3: It's not even close, but it it did.
Speaker 4: It was that I really liked being on the road before,
Speaker 4: and I really enjoyed. Yeah, there's a certain kind of
Speaker 4: like high that you get from that, like not sleep
Speaker 4: like different city, every day kind of life. And now
Speaker 4: I just literally everything is to go back home. Like
Speaker 4: how much can I minimize the time away from home?
Speaker 1: Is there a flight after the show? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I'm on Red Eyes.
Speaker 4: All the time, man like like I yeah, or that
Speaker 4: the you know the show I'm working on right now,
Speaker 4: New York. I'm my lap whatever. My last day of
Speaker 4: work is. There's a seven am flight the next day,
Speaker 4: and I'm on it. You know, they can get me
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 1: I'm on it.
Speaker 4: And here it's the if you put me on that
Speaker 4: midnight red Eye, I'll take that one.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Mostly they don't like me to show up the day
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: The more you start to like get you know, put
Speaker 2: more miles on yourself, I don't say get older. You
Speaker 2: start to realize I can't do that red Eye flight
Speaker 2: and show up it like, hey, I'm here.
Speaker 1: Everybody, I'm here to work and I'm ready to work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I won't be good exactly, but again, like that's
Speaker 4: actually less of a concern for me. And then spending
Speaker 4: time with my kids like if I get to do bedtime,
Speaker 4: I'll take being shitty tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need extra makeup today.
Speaker 4: Uh so yeah, so that thing is has been interesting,
Speaker 4: and but being a dad is it's the it's the.
Speaker 2: Most surprising thing. I mean, I know it's the best thing,
Speaker 2: but talking about some like really like specific things for me,
Speaker 2: I'll say, just to give you an example, like how
Speaker 2: much that like the kid. The moment the kid is born,
Speaker 2: you're actually meeting who they are, and it just reveals
Speaker 2: itself more over time, Like from the day each of
Speaker 2: my three daughters was born. They're that same person, but
Speaker 2: they were the day they were born. It's just because
Speaker 2: I just see it more. Their personality has emerged more
Speaker 2: over time.
Speaker 3: Man, it's so real.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, they're not empty vessels. They don't show up.
Speaker 2: They don't show up like O, well, just put whatever
Speaker 2: personality you wanted me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I.
Speaker 1: Don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't think I thought that's what it was going
Speaker 4: to be exactly, but I did think i'd have slightly
Speaker 4: more influence than I do.
Speaker 3: For sure, turns out like.
Speaker 4: I don't really have any Sometimes I get lucky, but
Speaker 4: he to he's really into music.
Speaker 3: Which is great.
Speaker 4: And we listen to so much music every day, and
Speaker 4: he's got you know, for for a two year old,
Speaker 4: like you know, generally they want to listen to the
Speaker 4: same things over and over again. But his his playlist
Speaker 4: of songs that he loves that you can sort of
Speaker 4: play anytime is like probably thirty songs long. Now, like
Speaker 4: he's you know, like he's made some musical stamina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now are these are these kids songs?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Almost none of them. I mean, he likes the Bluey
Speaker 3: theme song Come On.
Speaker 1: That's which I don't think is really kids programming.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't really watch the show.
Speaker 4: I watched the show, but every time the loops back
Speaker 4: to the song.
Speaker 1: It's a show for parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the cartoon parts for the for the kids,
Speaker 2: but the actual contents.
Speaker 3: For the parents exactly. That show is so amazing.
Speaker 4: But big fan of of of uh.
Speaker 3: G n X.
Speaker 4: Like he was like that was you know, which is
Speaker 4: amazing that it you know, it came out. It was
Speaker 4: for it was literally his generation, and he like that
Speaker 4: Kendrick Lamar halftime show. We were just watching it again.
Speaker 4: He watches it daily. We've had to limit it.
Speaker 1: Eat your vegetables and then we can watch the.
Speaker 3: Kid literally what we do, Like, that's not the statement.
Speaker 1: Have a lot of common because I just watched that
Speaker 1: recently too, again.
Speaker 4: Like yeah we yeah, that's on all the time and
Speaker 4: he has his favorite Peekaboos, his favorite song on the
Speaker 4: which is inappropriate.
Speaker 2: I'm a where my seven year old's a TV off kid.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He calls that song mustard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was excited to see Mustard at the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: That was that.
Speaker 4: Mustard too, And every time it comes out, he goes here,
Speaker 4: cup Mustard. Yeah, so g had Ex's is out. He's
Speaker 4: a big Brandy Carlisle fan. Didn't get that from me,
Speaker 4: saying I like a lot of choices that are his own.
Speaker 3: Also, that's I would like.
Speaker 2: The musical festival that was like the big stage is
Speaker 2: Kendrick Lamar and Brandy Carlisle.
Speaker 4: Yeah and clipping, Yeah, he only likes a cup all
Speaker 4: of my songs, but he does ask for them, which
Speaker 4: is very sweet.
Speaker 3: He goes one played Dada rapping.
Speaker 4: Breaks my heart and then I'll play a song and
Speaker 4: he's like, not that one, but yeah he's he's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he discovered I left the room.
Speaker 4: At one point and came back in and knew we
Speaker 4: were We had been like cruising through Apple Music on
Speaker 4: the Apple TV, which is how crazy it is that
Speaker 4: he can use remotes and stuff. But I left to
Speaker 4: use the bathroom song. I came back and he's got uh,
Speaker 4: some Egyptian pop song on called Bumbum that he's just
Speaker 4: dancing and he's that. He insisted that I added to
Speaker 4: his playlist right then, and it is like that's another
Speaker 4: thing in heavy rotation that he discovered entire time.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I had to go look up what it was about.
Speaker 4: It turns out it's like about a guy who like
Speaker 4: accidentally gets drunk uh when he's out with his friends
Speaker 4: and like the hilarity that ensues.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like a novelty song.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 4: This dude Muhammed was apparently like a that's which sounded
Speaker 4: fake to me, But that's because I don't know nothing.
Speaker 4: Uh uh apparently like a very big star and.
Speaker 3: I don't know, so that stuff's crazy.
Speaker 4: But yeah, him that that thing about them already being
Speaker 4: their own people.
Speaker 3: I think I was surprised initially.
Speaker 4: This has calmed down somewhat now, but by how much
Speaker 4: anxiety I had, uh right when he was very small.
Speaker 4: The pregnancy too, Yeah, I was having I thought I
Speaker 4: was sick, Like I was in the at the doctor
Speaker 4: all the time, and it was like I think you
Speaker 4: should try.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, just like anxiety if I'm about to be
Speaker 1: a dad.
Speaker 4: I wore one of them seven day heart monitors, you know, say,
Speaker 4: like I was really, I was like, there's something wrong
Speaker 4: with me and I wanted to be a dad. It
Speaker 4: was just it was like this incredible amount of fear.
Speaker 4: And then when he was small too, just that this
Speaker 4: is the not knowing if you're doing anything right and
Speaker 4: what does that even mean? And like the whole you know, yeah, really,
Speaker 4: I there's a person who hasn't. I'm a pretty nervous person,
Speaker 4: but I don't think of myself as an anxious person.
Speaker 4: I haven't had a ton of anxiety in my life,
Speaker 4: but that the last couple of years, I've been like, yeah,
Speaker 4: more stressed that I ever.
Speaker 2: Have you figured out what it's connected to exactly? I
Speaker 2: mean as a dad, I don't. I don't need to
Speaker 2: be like why would you be anxious? But I get
Speaker 2: but have you sort of figured out what it is.
Speaker 1: Or where it's coming from I think it was just.
Speaker 4: I, you know, really loving somebody very deeply is anxiety
Speaker 4: inducing in some ways, and that like I can't control everything.
Speaker 4: I can't make everything good for them, you know, And
Speaker 4: I am so mostly I think at peace with like
Speaker 4: the that not everything's going to be good for me,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, yeah, but you can't. You can't
Speaker 2: wrap your head around mine. Everything's gonna be.
Speaker 1: Good for him. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then with a kid like I had never I've
Speaker 4: never loved anybody that much, Like that was wild.
Speaker 3: So this this thing of.
Speaker 4: Being like, oh, I only want good things for you
Speaker 4: and that's impossible, and I I just like that really
Speaker 4: stresses me out. And I think I also had a
Speaker 4: I had a great childhood in a very hard situation,
Speaker 4: you know, saying in hindsight, like we were poor, we
Speaker 4: were East Oakland, we were you know, like it was
Speaker 4: a lot against us. And I was so happy and
Speaker 4: like I had so much fun and we have everything relatively,
Speaker 4: and I am so worried about his happiness all the time,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just like, oh, is this what you
Speaker 4: want to do?
Speaker 3: And I like and am I around enough?
Speaker 4: Which I'm really worth of being around That's the one
Speaker 4: thing I know is that both my parents were they
Speaker 4: were there. They weren't together, they were both very present,
Speaker 4: you know. So that's the one thing I try to
Speaker 4: control as much as I can. That just that he's
Speaker 4: about to start preschool, Are we choosing the right I
Speaker 4: don't know, like what and it's preschool. We could change
Speaker 4: it if he doesn't like it, go somewhere else, like where.
Speaker 4: It feels like such a stressful decision right now.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We live in a time where the algorithm once it knows,
Speaker 2: oh you and your dad, let me send you some
Speaker 2: things to be anxious about you and.
Speaker 3: Get the hell off. Yeah, barely.
Speaker 4: When I have to promote something, I tapped back in
Speaker 4: but mostly off that.
Speaker 2: But I think there's just the idea that there's also
Speaker 2: just so much more information to make you feel anxious
Speaker 2: and and that before when our parents were around, they
Speaker 2: just had to sort of you know, there's that one
Speaker 2: doctor's bock book, but other than that, it was just
Speaker 2: like just like figure it out, whereas now there's like,
Speaker 2: oh it's a book. Here's a book for kids who
Speaker 2: are one month and three days old, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So like there's just a lot more information
Speaker 2: that wants to make you anxious. But and I understand that,
Speaker 2: Like and I as a dad who travels a lot,
Speaker 2: and as a dad who if I talk about work,
Speaker 2: my kids sort of have that moment.
Speaker 1: Like are you about to leave? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But it's just like often I'm and I don't travel
Speaker 2: as much as I used to, but like even coming
Speaker 2: down here, I have to go. I'm two sleeps. I'll
Speaker 2: be gone for two sleeps. You have to describing things
Speaker 2: and sleep. So I feel like it helps, like.
Speaker 3: It changed everything so immediately.
Speaker 4: And all for like, I love my life right now.
Speaker 4: It's so great, but it was, it is. It's a bit.
Speaker 4: It's a big.
Speaker 3: Change, you know. So yeah, and it's great.
Speaker 2: It makes me when you're on the road, you're always
Speaker 2: like you said, it's like, oh, I'm glad to be
Speaker 2: here after the show's gore the air for yeah, get
Speaker 2: how to get home?
Speaker 3: How do I get home from here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: This is like I'm I'm like, oh, this will wrap
Speaker 2: up soon. I mean I have at nine o'clock, but
Speaker 2: I can just go straight to the airport, you know,
Speaker 2: you know. I like the idea of like all all.
Speaker 4: Three of us in clipping now have young children and
Speaker 4: like that. Jonathan described it really well one time. It's
Speaker 4: just like, yeah, I love playing shows.
Speaker 3: I love it. Nothing's better than hanging out with my daughter.
Speaker 4: Though there's another I would of course rather be doing
Speaker 4: that than anything else. So it doesn't really matter how
Speaker 4: much I love this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just unfortunately I can't figure out how hanging off
Speaker 1: my daughter will pay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can't say come to the show, yeah,
Speaker 2: or you do like a family channel where you just
Speaker 2: put your family on the internet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do that.
Speaker 1: No, I can't do it either.
Speaker 3: I can't do wish that for him. He is very cute.
Speaker 1: Though you look at your kid like, man, you could be.
Speaker 3: You could really make some money, kid, I.
Speaker 1: Talk, I be your manager, We can really be out there.
Speaker 3: That has occurred to me. Yeah, but I think he's
Speaker 3: he's pretty introverted like me. I don't think you would
Speaker 3: love it, so.
Speaker 2: For sure, for sure. Before we get out of here,
Speaker 2: a couple more things. Uh So, I moved to the
Speaker 2: band in ninety seven, and I was really moving to
Speaker 2: be a part of the San Franco comedy scene. But
Speaker 2: I found an apartment in Oakland. So that's how I
Speaker 2: ended up in Oakland. I lived in the city, but
Speaker 2: I was even for a while, but I was always
Speaker 2: in Oakland because I met Melissa. She was in the
Speaker 2: East Bay, and I worked and had a day job
Speaker 2: in Berkeley, and so it was like I was.
Speaker 1: Like, again, it's sliding door things.
Speaker 2: If I found an apartment in San Francisco, maybe I'm
Speaker 2: a different my life's different, but I'm so like and
Speaker 2: I've only learned more as i've sort of been in Oakland.
Speaker 2: And we moved back to the Bay in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: right apart met you, and my one oldest doughter was
Speaker 2: born in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: By the two kids were born in the East Bay.
Speaker 2: But so there's just this real sense of like my
Speaker 2: kids are growing up with this idea of like we
Speaker 2: are from Oakland or we are from the East Bay.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about for people from the outside, Because
Speaker 2: there's a thing and I heard you, we've talked about
Speaker 2: you've talked about before, like that you told me when
Speaker 2: you were doing a blind spotting that like you had
Speaker 2: to explain to the to the costume people, no people
Speaker 2: from Oakland were things that say Oakland on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not it's not weird. It's not the only
Speaker 1: tourists do conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, actually we do wear It's not like everybody
Speaker 4: can just be wearing shirts to wrep the city. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they kind of go walk around for a second.
Speaker 1: You know, I can. Yeah, So can you just explain
Speaker 1: what that is? Why?
Speaker 2: What is the secret sauce there? Because you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of people love their hometown, but you've traveled all
Speaker 2: over the world, so you've seen other places.
Speaker 1: What is it about?
Speaker 2: And I feel like there's also part of the conversation
Speaker 2: that I also want to have East Bay versus Oakland.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, like like you.
Speaker 2: Also went to school in Berkeley, right, Yeah, so there's
Speaker 2: also the Berkeley thing versus Oakland.
Speaker 1: And I find myself in times like trying to figure
Speaker 1: out I live in Oakland.
Speaker 2: I love Oakland, but also I love the greater East
Speaker 2: Bay and also I did live in Berkeley, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm not mad, you know, and I'm not trying to,
Speaker 2: but just but there is a there's all these different
Speaker 2: ways to describe this place and to name this place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 1: A lot. Yeah, and it is inside baseball. But I
Speaker 1: sort of feel like there's.
Speaker 3: No more baseball. But that's not true. I mean the.
Speaker 1: Balls, dollars, yeah, the ballers, the boers.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so like I just feel like you are
Speaker 2: from that place, so you and I feel sometimes I've
Speaker 2: gotten to the place where I'm really careful with my language,
Speaker 2: like because I know that sometimes people from Oakland are like, hey, come,
Speaker 2: I'll slow the down, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: you're not you didn't go to high school here, so
Speaker 2: settle down.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, so you know, okay, I'll set
Speaker 1: it out a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, but you I don't know, you've been there
Speaker 3: off a long time. But but yeah.
Speaker 1: As a as you're like, you're I've been here long,
Speaker 1: You've been alive.
Speaker 4: But okay, I think this is this feels like it's
Speaker 4: I'm speaking from a particular perspective of my age. Also
Speaker 4: that should be madeware. So like, I don't know how
Speaker 4: this applies to people younger than me, but it used
Speaker 4: to be and this is still to a degree true.
Speaker 4: When you tell people you're from California, it's either La
Speaker 4: or San Francisco, right, Like those are the two things that.
Speaker 1: People know yeah, sure.
Speaker 4: So part of being from the East Bay was about
Speaker 4: differentiating from that. It was hard line about we are
Speaker 4: not San Francisco, and you know because you're there, like
Speaker 4: culturally they are very different experiences. But also like yeah,
Speaker 4: we just hated that thing, like that's not who we are,
Speaker 4: Like we're we're over here and we're own thing.
Speaker 3: We're either it's.
Speaker 2: Sort of analogous to the Brooklyn Queens thing, but like.
Speaker 1: The cities, different cultures and differsonality.
Speaker 3: Functions the same way sort of.
Speaker 4: And so there's that Oakland being kind of like the
Speaker 4: biggest East Bay city, like the kind of hub that
Speaker 4: also became kind of a catch all for East Bay, right,
Speaker 4: And so there'd be again like if you're away, you
Speaker 4: could tell people from San Franciso.
Speaker 3: No from Oakland, then you'll just match just across the bridge. Whatever.
Speaker 4: If you start saying saying if you start saying things
Speaker 4: like Hayward or San Leandro or whatever else, Rito, Albany
Speaker 4: where I lived, like all of it, you know, Richmond,
Speaker 4: all these other things, people, it got so granular that
Speaker 4: people couldn't take it. So there was also this generalization happening,
Speaker 4: and for people who are really from Oakland used to
Speaker 4: be like you got used to being like people say,
Speaker 4: I'm from Oakland, Oh where we'll part you from, you know,
Speaker 4: or I'm from there too.
Speaker 3: Oh well I'm from Piedmont, you know.
Speaker 4: Which is actually like part of Oakland but you don't
Speaker 4: want to you know, or you know, was like a suburb,
Speaker 4: or you know, I'm from Hayward people. Yeah, so there
Speaker 4: there's this this other kind of like Oakland chauvinism, because
Speaker 4: Oakland feels special because it like was the hub.
Speaker 3: It was like it had the the.
Speaker 4: It was a historically was like a rougher area, you know,
Speaker 4: although I don't know, we were all scared of Richmond.
Speaker 3: But so yeah, so there was there was that too.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there was like a badge of honor with
Speaker 4: being from Oakland, from this like home of the Black
Speaker 4: Panther Party, this like real like sort of important like cultural,
Speaker 4: culturally relevant thing. And so I always I was born
Speaker 4: in Oakland, and my dad always lived in Oakland, and
Speaker 4: my mom then kept moving further and further north. So
Speaker 4: I was, as a person who was kind of out
Speaker 4: of place anyway, would always just claim Oakland because I
Speaker 4: was always living there. And then when I moved back home,
Speaker 4: I moved to Oakland, so you know, I've always felt
Speaker 4: like that was my home. But I also, like my
Speaker 4: mom lived in Albany, and I would never claim that,
Speaker 4: like that's crazy. You don't want to say that in
Speaker 4: public Like already is a very like well off small
Speaker 4: suburb with great public schools and where the most of
Speaker 4: the population, at least at the time were families of
Speaker 4: professors or my mom's case, they had one student housing
Speaker 4: complex down by the train tracks called the University Village
Speaker 4: where like graduate students with families could could live. And
Speaker 4: so my mom had gone back to school after my
Speaker 4: brother was born, and so she moved to the to
Speaker 4: the village, which is really desirable because again, like great
Speaker 4: public schools in Albany. So if you're gonna send it
Speaker 4: the thing, I understand so much more now than I
Speaker 4: did at the time. But like we had just saiducated
Speaker 4: in public school, you could live in Albany, then there
Speaker 4: you go.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there there's always this kind of like division
Speaker 4: and explanation and like where are you really from and
Speaker 4: all this stuff, But yeah, a lot of it, at
Speaker 4: least when we were young, was about being able to
Speaker 4: claim something that felt tough, you know, both because like
Speaker 4: it's cool because you're a young man and you want
Speaker 4: to feel tough, and also because like there's a certain
Speaker 4: kind of safety with having people be a little bit
Speaker 4: afraid of you for no good reason, right, like for
Speaker 4: someone like me, you know, who's not a scary person
Speaker 4: to lead with something that's a little bit like.
Speaker 3: Oh and like that.
Speaker 4: There's another great thing about Oakland is that like there's
Speaker 4: a kind of danger associated with it, even though like
Speaker 4: a lot of us are very artsy, like, even though
Speaker 4: it's a sort of and it's you know, you get
Speaker 4: your you get your like kumbaya, you're sort of hippiasthetic
Speaker 4: mixed right in with all your gangsterism and stuff. So
Speaker 4: it's and it was, so it's very useful to be
Speaker 4: able to come from a place that is that mixture,
Speaker 4: you know, where I got the hard part for Free
Speaker 4: God having to actually portray any of it. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what I think about it for me. But it
Speaker 4: is like sort of the rich cultural history, the history
Speaker 4: of protests, the intellectual.
Speaker 3: History of Oakland, you know, and it.
Speaker 4: Is all there, and it is all there actually in
Speaker 4: the Holy Spade. But the neighborhoods field different. But like
Speaker 4: you know, I can go home and talk to people
Speaker 4: about books. I can't really talk to people in La
Speaker 4: about books.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so it's that there is something different there, and.
Speaker 3: Especially for artists, but kind of for everybody. There's a.
Speaker 4: I think if you're from there, there's a there's an
Speaker 4: understanding that like it is special, and a lot of
Speaker 4: us end up fighting to.
Speaker 3: Keep it that way or to figure out how to keep.
Speaker 4: It that way and to figure out how to be
Speaker 4: able to survive and live there and make better livings there,
Speaker 4: and you know, you're still living there, so like this
Speaker 4: is a this is weird, like really part of that
Speaker 4: it's like how to you know, how can we grow
Speaker 4: this here instead of having to leave so much to
Speaker 4: figure this out and so and often at odds with
Speaker 4: our elected officials or you know, like there's often not
Speaker 4: a lot of help. But because I think historically that
Speaker 4: is also true, like the way community works there is
Speaker 4: different than it is in a lot of places.
Speaker 3: Certainly that it.
Speaker 4: Is here, you know, which geographically is very different. There
Speaker 4: are all sorts of reasons for that.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, La was northern was that area. It
Speaker 2: would be like nine different cities, like it would not
Speaker 2: be just Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we you know, there's a.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a kind of community there that like does
Speaker 4: feel different. And I think when you're from there, you've
Speaker 4: lived there a long time, there is this sort of
Speaker 4: uh drive and desire to continue to give back to
Speaker 4: it and continue to figure out how to.
Speaker 3: Make it a better place, because we all love it.
Speaker 1: So much.
Speaker 4: And even when we're not there, like we want it
Speaker 4: to thrive. Like the so much of my identity is
Speaker 4: about being from Oakland and being from.
Speaker 3: The East Bay in general, and so like.
Speaker 4: As that changes, I feel it is like shake, it shakes.
Speaker 3: Some things for me. You know, there were.
Speaker 4: Yes, but people could you know, families that I knew
Speaker 4: can't live there anymore, all that stuff, like all these
Speaker 4: just home the things that you called home, And that
Speaker 4: happens for everybody everywhere. But I think us or for me,
Speaker 4: loving that place so much, like it takes on like
Speaker 4: more of a Sometimes you feel like your foundation gets
Speaker 4: shaky when I don't know if the a's leave heard
Speaker 4: something you know, like or whatever, or the or the
Speaker 4: warriors leading a sign I'm not still It's like that's
Speaker 4: what a yeah, a slap.
Speaker 3: In the face. You were on the better side.
Speaker 2: You want some championships and the services like, oh we'd
Speaker 2: like that team now, yeah, bring back over here.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just the sort of connected to
Speaker 2: all this is there's not every city has an activist culture,
Speaker 2: but I don't know that every city demands that all
Speaker 2: of its people sort of be engaged in the activist
Speaker 2: culture of the way that Oakland does. And Berkeley is
Speaker 2: part of this too with the free speech movement and everything.
Speaker 2: But the idea that like talk about, because you could
Speaker 2: be doing everything you're doing and not be regularly engaging
Speaker 2: in activism, right, you could just be like, I'm working,
Speaker 2: I'm a good representative of my city, but you are
Speaker 2: also regularly sort of like speaking out and saying things
Speaker 2: and supporting things someone regularly. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: see you know, yeah, I'll say regularly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, more than most. All right again, more flowers,
Speaker 1: thank you?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. When people call on you,
Speaker 1: you do answer the call.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're not like, sorry, I've got a
Speaker 2: big movie coming out. I can't really be out here
Speaker 2: looking like I care about these care about humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so why do you answer the call?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it was how we grew up,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean the Berkeley all the Berkeley High thing,
Speaker 4: like we were walking out of school every day.
Speaker 3: I don't know, prot it was a protest. It was
Speaker 3: at least a protest a week.
Speaker 4: Just like, and the teachers were like, oh, we got
Speaker 4: to wrap up class earlier.
Speaker 3: I know, you got a big protest to get to.
Speaker 1: You know. It was like, uh, we'll stop math today
Speaker 1: because you gotta get up.
Speaker 3: You guys got to get out there.
Speaker 1: Nuclear here.
Speaker 4: I have some extra signs behind the desk if you'd
Speaker 4: like to, you know, whatever.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it was just part of it, and I
Speaker 3: don't know it was.
Speaker 4: It was sort of a surprised to find art separate
Speaker 4: from activism actually, like upon leaving, you know, I didn't
Speaker 4: really know. I guess I had heard tell of it,
Speaker 4: but like I didn't really know how you participated, and
Speaker 4: I didn't know that it existed.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I was a poetry slam kid, and I was like whatever,
Speaker 4: like I you know, Mark Mamuti, Joseph one of my mentors,
Speaker 4: like they're there literally was no separation between like any
Speaker 4: word he said, and like any way that his body
Speaker 4: moves and like his connection to activism, So like I yeah,
Speaker 4: so it's just yeah, it's just kind of in there
Speaker 4: and it's not you know, it's not all great. There's
Speaker 4: you know, there are some ways that like Berkeley is
Speaker 4: really fucking annoying man like Oakley can be really annoying.
Speaker 4: But also I would take it over, you know, I
Speaker 4: would take an awareness, even at the expense of just
Speaker 4: being able to have a nice dinner, you know, to
Speaker 4: the other side of it, to only ever having nice
Speaker 4: tenders with like not having at least some some awareness
Speaker 4: and desire to like help people that like things should
Speaker 4: not be as they are and how do I at
Speaker 4: at least some exploration of how do I fit into that,
Speaker 4: and how can I affect that and how can we
Speaker 4: affect that for each other.
Speaker 2: There's also to me with the thing that when I
Speaker 2: think about what I gained by moving to the Bay
Speaker 2: Area and living in Oakland specifically, there's an effortless intersectionality
Speaker 2: that happens there where you just stumble across different communities
Speaker 2: and so then you leave and go, Wait, you guys
Speaker 2: are freaked out about those things. I didn't know, to
Speaker 2: be freaked out about those things, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like I was just sort of around people saying those things,
Speaker 2: and you know, so you know that we just sort
Speaker 2: of that even though it's funny, Oakland has this very
Speaker 2: hard you know, like you said, like you know, like
Speaker 2: don't oh you're from Oakland up. But also like Oakland
Speaker 2: has this like as long as you're cool, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and also down for the people, down for the cause,
Speaker 2: down for the people struggling, down for the oppressed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and not a lot of.
Speaker 4: There's not a lot of pretense about what that looks
Speaker 4: like on some what kind of person that is, right,
Speaker 4: It's a diverse community in all senses, economically, ethnically, and
Speaker 4: just so like there's yeah, I feel like a lot
Speaker 4: of places you'll go and there's there's just an assumption
Speaker 4: that a person who cares about this is this kind
Speaker 4: of a person, or has this kind of a job,
Speaker 4: or does this really you know, and that's just not
Speaker 4: true there. Like you said, like the intersectionality is very common.
Speaker 4: It's almost like it just is how it is, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the things when you
Speaker 4: talk about the reason we are so proud of it
Speaker 4: when we're from there is because we you know, you
Speaker 4: go away and you is the first time when you
Speaker 4: realize that not everywhere. It's like oh and you're starting
Speaker 4: to explain yourself all the time, and the explanation always
Speaker 4: ends up starting to look, I'm from I'm from Oakland.
Speaker 3: So and then you know and you hope that that.
Speaker 1: Will be enough. Is that you know?
Speaker 4: So you yeah, yeah, it's a different way of seeing things.
Speaker 3: It just is it just it just is. I don't
Speaker 3: know and make it, but I grew up in it,
Speaker 3: so like, yeah.
Speaker 1: You're and you're making it. You're making it.
Speaker 2: My penultimate question, are there any Is there any life
Speaker 2: lesson or thing that is true in your life? Are
Speaker 2: things that regularly help you sort of get through the
Speaker 2: day or sort of process the world, or things that
Speaker 2: you're like, this thing is true, this thing I've learned,
Speaker 2: this thing my mom said, this thing I read one
Speaker 2: time really helps you sort of like a mantra or
Speaker 2: anything that's sort of like like that, you're like, this
Speaker 2: is one thing.
Speaker 1: I know a few.
Speaker 4: I have a couple of good mantras and me and
Speaker 4: Ralph's mantra for since we started making rap songs. Energy
Speaker 4: up expectations down, is it?
Speaker 1: And so energy up expectations down.
Speaker 4: When we were doing rap shows at you know, the
Speaker 4: Senior Citizens Center in Berkeley or whatever like that, this.
Speaker 3: Was the thing like you're gonna put if you this
Speaker 3: is what we're doing.
Speaker 4: This is what we're doing now, and I'll put all
Speaker 4: of myself into it, and I'm going to expect absolutely
Speaker 4: nothing in return. I'm doing this because this is what
Speaker 4: I do, and so has served me very well. I'm
Speaker 4: always pleasantly surprised when anything comes back. It's not the point.
Speaker 4: It's again like about being a process person. And my
Speaker 4: dad always told me that you love people for exactly
Speaker 4: who they are and uh not who you want them
Speaker 4: to be. Who love them for who they are, and
Speaker 4: when they tell you who they are, you get to
Speaker 4: listen to them and you get to hold them to that,
Speaker 4: you know, And that is a thing that has really
Speaker 4: served me, like.
Speaker 1: That, you look for it, that's who you are.
Speaker 2: If I love you, then I understand that you are
Speaker 2: and I don't again, energy up expectations exactly what to
Speaker 2: expect from you, because you've told me who you are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's and it was never about what I
Speaker 4: get back from you necessarily. You know, it's about I
Speaker 4: love this, this is who this is you, that's what
Speaker 4: I love and uh yeah, so those those are probably
Speaker 4: the two best ones.
Speaker 2: That's great, that's great. We don't know, we get too
Speaker 2: Thank you for that last question. What cause would you
Speaker 2: like people to support? What nonprofit?
Speaker 1: What? What thing that's going on? Do you want people
Speaker 1: to know about?
Speaker 4: The organization I've been doing the most work with lately
Speaker 4: is one called cool Hand Series, which is run by
Speaker 4: a woman named Madison O'Leary, and it's the hype as
Speaker 4: we bring films and filmmakers into prisons and then have
Speaker 4: conversations with inmates after post screening. So it's allowing art
Speaker 4: to make its way into the prison system and for
Speaker 4: the artists, for the creator, also getting us to think
Speaker 4: more about where our stories come from and who there's
Speaker 4: who are stories are for and.
Speaker 3: Where the story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great organization is basically Maddie doing all
Speaker 4: of it. Ralph and I have brought Blind Spotting into
Speaker 4: a number of prisons at this point. They're also doing
Speaker 4: playwriting and and theater workshops in there, so producing plays
Speaker 4: and uh yeah, and she's brought so many great films
Speaker 4: and filmmakers in already a lot of work in California,
Speaker 4: a lot of New York. Also, we've done work in Utah.
Speaker 4: She's doing work in Texas. I haven't been there yet,
Speaker 4: but we're trying to figure that out. So yeah, it's
Speaker 4: it's a great org for like the artist friends of mine,
Speaker 4: like the naming names who are listening to this when
Speaker 4: when you get the call just say yes.
Speaker 3: It's so fun.
Speaker 4: It is actually like you know, it's it's a great,
Speaker 4: great time and a great and eye opening experience and
Speaker 4: you get to have some really beautiful conversations and meet
Speaker 4: really beautiful people, and you know, it's a way to
Speaker 4: acknowledge the madness of our for profit prison system in
Speaker 4: a very like hands on way and then figure out
Speaker 4: at least start to spend a little bit on well,
Speaker 4: what what can we do? This is how it is
Speaker 4: a how can we change it? And be like what
Speaker 4: can we do with it in this in its current state?
Speaker 4: And I think that's actually for a thing that is
Speaker 4: pretty simple at its course, just like come in to
Speaker 4: prison and do and talk to people who show art
Speaker 4: and talk to people who are interested in art.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called the cool Hand Series, cool Hand Series,
Speaker 2: and I haven't done that, but I have done so
Speaker 2: at Saint Quentin, and I think people don't understand that
Speaker 2: you get afraid of, like going into a prison, but
Speaker 2: when you go to those places, you immediately feel like,
Speaker 2: who's afraid of? They're just so happy that I'm here.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the just and there and there happen,
Speaker 2: and the things that I say that I know they'd never.
Speaker 1: Have heard before, and they really appreciate it, you know, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's it's always a beautiful experience. Everyone is
Speaker 4: thrilled that you're there. And also and I end up
Speaker 4: getting so much out of it, and every time I
Speaker 4: go so sure.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh, last of the podcast is called Who's with Me?
Speaker 1: Are you with me?
Speaker 3: I'm with you? All right?
Speaker 1: Always be weird to find out.
Speaker 3: Actually, thank you.
Speaker 1: Finally, I didn't want to be here at all.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, Thanks Verving.
Speaker 2: That was my conversation with David Diggs. Love talking to
Speaker 2: that dude, could talk to him for hours and hours.
Speaker 2: Just sort of good person.
Speaker 1: As you heard.
Speaker 2: At the end, he shouted out the cool Hand Series,
Speaker 2: which is a curated series that brings filmmakers and their
Speaker 2: films into prisons so that the population there can see
Speaker 2: these films they might not otherwise see, and also they
Speaker 2: can engage enough conversations with these filmmakers.
Speaker 1: It's a great idea.
Speaker 2: I do a lot of work with San Quentin in
Speaker 2: my area, so I know the power of going into
Speaker 2: a prison. It is powerful for the people in the prison.
Speaker 2: It's also powerful for you. Thank you DEVV for being
Speaker 2: on the show today. Come back anytime. Also, thank you
Speaker 2: to Rabigren here in La where I am right now,
Speaker 2: who's producing this show, Rabagren Productions. Thank out to Pushkin
Speaker 2: Productions who is helping send this podcast around the world.
Speaker 2: And thank you to who else. Thank you to me.
Speaker 1: I showed up and I did it. I did my best.
Speaker 2: Special shout out to Skyline Studios as always, who lets
Speaker 2: me do things in Oakland. Next week, our guest is
Speaker 2: Nava Mao. Nava Mao is famously known for being one
Speaker 2: of the stars of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer. Nava
Speaker 2: Mao is also a transgender actress, which I only mentioned
Speaker 2: because we talk about that a lot, and I want
Speaker 2: you to tune in for that episode because the last
Speaker 2: two weeks we've talked about the transgender community. But I
Speaker 2: should probably have somebody from that community to speak for themselves.
Speaker 2: So next week, nav Mao and also once again, please
Speaker 2: like and subscribe Hype the Channel, give us five star reviews,
Speaker 2: and once you do all that, then share the podcast
Speaker 2: with somebody in your life who you think would dig it.
Speaker 2: That's the important part. That's how we build it. If
Speaker 2: you share this podcast with one or two people, then
Speaker 2: we can really start to do some things and really
Speaker 2: get the word out there.
Speaker 1: Who's with me? Are you with me? I'm with you?
Speaker 1: If you're watching right now, I'm pretty sure I'm with you.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that Dana White and Joe Rogan made
Speaker 2: it this far.