Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello friends,
Speaker 1: welcome back to another week of work in progress. I
Speaker 1: am geeked about today's guest because I am such an
Speaker 1: enormous fan not only of his art but his activism,
Speaker 1: and I cannot wait to pick his brain on all
Speaker 1: of it. Today's guest is Alo Black. You know him
Speaker 1: as an American singer and rapper. You know him from
Speaker 1: A Vichi's Wake Me Up and from his smash hit
Speaker 1: I Need a Dollar. What you may not know is
Speaker 1: that Alo never planned on being a musician. His life
Speaker 1: kind of happened by accident. He thought he would be
Speaker 1: an academic and somehow took a left turn, and from
Speaker 1: touring around the world and major stages everywhere, he has
Speaker 1: managed to solidify his place in the mainstream music scene
Speaker 1: while also being an incredible advocate for change. From studying
Speaker 1: the methodologies of Nelson Mandela to being mentored by Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 1: Alo has been involved in so many charitable causes and
Speaker 1: in deep social justice work. He speaks out on the
Speaker 1: importance and mental health awareness. He has collaborated with the
Speaker 1: Biden administration to promote its national strategy to prevent suicide,
Speaker 1: and his latest album, Stand Together, is not only a
Speaker 1: beautiful musical journey that I've been waiting for for five years,
Speaker 1: but every song on the album has a partnered philanthropic
Speaker 1: initiative that fans can learn about. Talk about being a
Speaker 1: true artist in every sense of the word and spending
Speaker 1: your privilege and your platform for good. Hear Mallow Black,
Speaker 1: Where are you today?
Speaker 2: I live in LA I'm Glendale.
Speaker 1: Okay. I grew up in Pasadena. Oh are you there
Speaker 1: now or neighbors. No, I'm actually on the East Coast now,
Speaker 1: but my folks are still there. And yeah, we were
Speaker 1: like Miracle Mile kids. And then eventually my parents moved
Speaker 1: to Pasadena and they're still there.
Speaker 2: Oh. Crazy.
Speaker 1: Normally I like to ask people about who they were
Speaker 1: as kids, And so often when I'm interviewing parents that
Speaker 1: have kids in that kind of stage of developmental age
Speaker 1: that I know years are in, they get to kind
Speaker 1: of see this mirroring of themselves as children and see
Speaker 1: versions of themselves in their own children at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if you got to go back and
Speaker 1: hang out with yourself as a ten year old kid,
Speaker 1: the way you get to hang out with your kids.
Speaker 1: Would you see aspects of the man you are today
Speaker 1: in that little boy?
Speaker 2: Oh? Probably not. I don't know. I don't know. I was.
Speaker 3: I see my son and there are a lot of
Speaker 3: similarities in him as a child compared to who I
Speaker 3: was as a child, And I think it's going to
Speaker 3: be I think he might be the same. It's going
Speaker 3: to be like a night and day flip where the
Speaker 3: kind of rambunctious, un bridled energy of youth sort of
Speaker 3: meets with this this moment of change where you become
Speaker 3: measured and more temperate and decisive, but no, also with
Speaker 3: the ability to navigate between both personalities, the extrovert, the introvert.
Speaker 2: The entertainer and the observer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, he seems like he's probably gonna
Speaker 3: flip that switch in the next seven years.
Speaker 2: Probably.
Speaker 1: Wow. And is that all right around when it started
Speaker 1: to happen for you?
Speaker 3: No, it happened for me earlier then. I think it
Speaker 3: will happen for him. But I think that it's just
Speaker 3: different circumstances. You know, I had I had two parents
Speaker 3: that worked full time. We were a very kind of
Speaker 3: middle class family. And what's different now is that there's
Speaker 3: I think a lot more attention that my wife and
Speaker 3: I give to the kids, a lot more comfort and
Speaker 3: intentional parenting versus fly by the seat of your parts
Speaker 3: on the table and make sure the kids get to
Speaker 3: school parenting that I grew up with.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I talk to my friends about this all the time,
Speaker 1: because we're really the first generation that has been in
Speaker 1: this phase of life with all these resources, all the
Speaker 1: mental health studies and all the understanding of you know,
Speaker 1: communication and the value of therapy and all these things
Speaker 1: that our folks didn't really have. And it's it's so
Speaker 1: inspiring for me to look at parents in my life
Speaker 1: and watch the way they can acknowledge where their own
Speaker 1: parents fell short, still love them for it, and be
Speaker 1: choosing to create a different pattern in real time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: It is incredible. There's a lot, like you said, a
Speaker 3: lot of resources. We chosen a school that has a
Speaker 3: pedagogy that I think helps parents become better parents. One
Speaker 3: of the really special things is that before the Surgeon
Speaker 3: General's warning on social media, we were already engaged in
Speaker 3: a media free campus, media free lifestyle. So you know,
Speaker 3: it's very limited the amount of television or TV programming
Speaker 3: that the kids would get and they're you know, they're
Speaker 3: they're fine with it. They've learned to manage without it,
Speaker 3: and there's no pressure coming from the school because the
Speaker 3: other kids are on board with the program. So it's
Speaker 3: helped us be better parents, but also just more focused
Speaker 3: and intentional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting thing I think for people in
Speaker 1: our lines of work to analyze relationships to media, and
Speaker 1: even when you talk about how the sort of flip
Speaker 1: happened in your young self, how as an adult you
Speaker 1: have to hold both your performer and your introvert, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about that a lot, being the performer, the entertainer,
Speaker 1: and also a listener who likes to be quiet. There's
Speaker 1: then the layer of how you have to participate in
Speaker 1: media on top of it, and when you've pursued a
Speaker 1: career in it. I mean, before you became a solo artist,
Speaker 1: you were part of a hip hop duo and la
Speaker 1: in the nineties, I mean, everything about it was so
Speaker 1: incredible and music was so incredible, and there's no way
Speaker 1: to be a musician without being in the media, right, So, like,
Speaker 1: at least then there was no social there was no
Speaker 1: thumb scroll on the iPhone. What was that what was
Speaker 1: that era like for.
Speaker 2: It was the best era. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know that we'll ever be able to have
Speaker 3: that again. I would love to try to replicate it somehow,
Speaker 3: but it would take concerned effort on everybody's part to
Speaker 3: recognize that what makes it special is sort of the
Speaker 3: exclusivity of the temporal exclusivity, the spatial exclusivity, and the
Speaker 3: informational exclusivity. It's that you, if you know, you know,
Speaker 3: and once you're there, you get to experience it, and
Speaker 3: then it's word of mouth, and and if you weren't there,
Speaker 3: then it's like the tail of you know, the fish
Speaker 3: that you caught just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and
Speaker 3: so the hype gets is real.
Speaker 2: So but.
Speaker 3: Wow, when I was growing up and in the hip
Speaker 3: hop scene, we would have access to all of the artists,
Speaker 3: the stars nowadays, people that you kind of just look
Speaker 3: at like, oh, that's a bonafide you know, superstar, billionaire
Speaker 3: artist and hip hop those folks. We would literally go
Speaker 3: to clubs and see them for five bucks or ten
Speaker 3: bucks in LA and just an awesome time of music
Speaker 3: and dance and art and culture. And I know that
Speaker 3: it is possible, and I know that we was part
Speaker 3: of our mental wellness, right. It was our own modality
Speaker 3: for ensuring that we were healthy because we had a
Speaker 3: community and a culture that we belonged to, that we
Speaker 3: subscribed to.
Speaker 2: Of course, my parents are from Panama.
Speaker 3: There was a whole community and culture from Central America
Speaker 3: Latin America that I was part of. And then my
Speaker 3: friends that I went to school with, we had our
Speaker 3: our own sort of you know, suburban subculture.
Speaker 2: And then there were my hip hop friends and culture.
Speaker 3: So I had the opportunity to choose between uh and
Speaker 3: and actually code switch between a lot of different cultures.
Speaker 2: But it's the it was the.
Speaker 3: Beautiful mental well I'm gonna a kinning making it an
Speaker 3: association with mental wellness. Now I didn't. I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: done it back then, but now I can see that.
Speaker 3: The fact that we were in propinquity and proximity with
Speaker 3: one another, that we were engaged in physical activity so
Speaker 3: it was dance or performance. The fact that we were
Speaker 3: free to make mistakes without the repercussion of forever documentation.
Speaker 3: All of that combined was I think the best and
Speaker 3: most nurturing soil to grow up in.
Speaker 1: I love that that idea that you could be free
Speaker 1: not only to make mistakes, but to experiment with your
Speaker 1: own art, because sure, if you can make a mistake
Speaker 1: in private, you can have a normally sized consequence of sorts.
Speaker 1: To do it in public does something to I think
Speaker 1: a tiny human brain that it's not meant to experience.
Speaker 1: But I worry about this, everyone recording everything all the time.
Speaker 1: I worry about what that's costing art because people are
Speaker 1: afraid to have something that's mediocre go on the internet.
Speaker 1: But you got to rehearse, you got to try things,
Speaker 1: You got to see. If you're a comedian, you have
Speaker 1: to see how a joke works in a crowd. Comedians
Speaker 1: workshop around the country, Artists perform a new song, see
Speaker 1: what the vibe is, realize it it's missing a synth
Speaker 1: or a drum or whatever, and go back and layer.
Speaker 1: And nobody wants to do that anymore. People only want
Speaker 1: to give out what is perfect because it might go somewhere.
Speaker 1: And I'm scared of the generation of art we're costing
Speaker 1: ourselves because everyone's too afraid to take risks.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, that's a real concern of mine as well.
Speaker 3: And I would add in the layer of algorithms and industry.
Speaker 3: Industry is so much smarter, and now with algorithms, they're
Speaker 3: even more informed about how to sell and market. And
Speaker 3: what's unfortunate is that it becomes this recursive loop, a
Speaker 3: reductive recursive loop that does not allow for better or
Speaker 3: more interesting or productive art. Yes, and I think about
Speaker 3: how we can, you know, try to you know, go
Speaker 3: back to square one. And I don't want to sound like,
Speaker 3: you know, back in my day, but there was something
Speaker 3: special about the garage band. Yes, And now that it's
Speaker 3: more so, the discovery and engagement is online and it's
Speaker 3: more insular, it's more solo than it is the group,
Speaker 3: and the groups that exist are all so manicured and
Speaker 3: perfect and seen that it begs the question will we
Speaker 3: ever be able to see, you know, kids just having
Speaker 3: fun for the sake of having fun anymore? Or is
Speaker 3: all of their fun for display? And does it have
Speaker 3: to be perfectly presented and rehearsed fun?
Speaker 1: And when it works for these young artists, the blow
Speaker 1: up is so fast. You know, It's been interesting to
Speaker 1: watch Chapel Roone have this big year and everyone's like
Speaker 1: good for her, and she's out there being like I'm traumatized,
Speaker 1: like the Internet's wild. What people expect of me is
Speaker 1: really hard for me to process. A year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, nobody knew this kid's name, and I think
Speaker 1: about the pressure, you know, we kind of got to
Speaker 1: be out there and make a thing and have a
Speaker 1: show premiere or drop an album and do the press
Speaker 1: tour and then also like go home, go to the
Speaker 1: bar with our friends, like not every outing was expected
Speaker 1: to be chased and tailed and photographed and packaged. And
Speaker 1: I think about things that are so like those moments
Speaker 1: that take me back, you know, almost like an old
Speaker 1: factory hit when you smell something and suddenly you're to
Speaker 1: someone you haven't seen in ages. And when I was
Speaker 1: getting ready for today and I was thinking about all
Speaker 1: the phases of my own life that your music has
Speaker 1: been a part of. I even think about when I
Speaker 1: Need a dollar, was, you know, the theme song to
Speaker 1: Make It in America. And like my buddy Brian Greenberg
Speaker 1: from my first show, One Tree Hill was on that
Speaker 1: show and we were like, oh my god, and it
Speaker 1: felt like this moment for us, like supporting our friend
Speaker 1: and this song that was everwhere on the radio and
Speaker 1: it was it was the theme song of the HBO show,
Speaker 1: like the possibilities felt so big, and it was it's
Speaker 1: like one of my favorite memories as a young artist.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't even my show, but it was like
Speaker 1: we all had this connection in this way and nobody
Speaker 1: was expected to be and like the head to to
Speaker 1: look by the stylist and doing the thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: now everybody's looking at these retro photos from the nineties
Speaker 1: and the early two thousands and being like, God, what
Speaker 1: cool style. And it's like people were just wearing they were.
Speaker 2: Just wearing what they were Yeah, what were in closet
Speaker 2: or in the drawer? There was and there was none
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: Thank you for mentioning I Need a Dollar because that
Speaker 3: was an epic moment for me as well.
Speaker 2: That was exactly what you said.
Speaker 3: I was just making music for the few fans that
Speaker 3: I knew I had who would appreciate it. And I
Speaker 3: was like, and I'll probably go get another job in
Speaker 3: a couple months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And now for our sponsors, and can I ask
Speaker 1: just a technical question for the timeline, how long was
Speaker 1: this after you embarked as a solo artist.
Speaker 3: I Need a Dollar hit in two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: or so. I had been laid off in two thousand
Speaker 3: and three, so six years of kind of solo artistry.
Speaker 3: I've always been engaged in art, doing hip hop music.
Speaker 3: I released I think two thousand and five maybe the
Speaker 3: last the hip hop album with my partner DJ Exile
Speaker 3: as Eminon, and then released a solo album in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six or something like that.
Speaker 1: So this song hits and it's like, what, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when that when that beat starts and it just
Speaker 1: the loop is so good. I think about walking down
Speaker 1: the street in New York and my bee, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's so it's seminole.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. You're right.
Speaker 3: It has an essence, a really really powerful emotive sound
Speaker 3: to it, and it does.
Speaker 2: It does make me think of like.
Speaker 3: A scene, you know, scene of Staying Alive where johnsha
Speaker 3: Volks was just walking down New York. But I was,
Speaker 3: you know, I was at a moment where I had
Speaker 3: no expectations because I've been doing music for so long
Speaker 3: and music really wasn't supposed to be my career.
Speaker 2: It's just the hobby.
Speaker 3: And I knew that I can always go back to
Speaker 3: corporate or go back to school and kind of be
Speaker 3: a career scholar or something.
Speaker 2: But I was lucky. I was lucky, and I've been
Speaker 2: chasing this luck, writing this luck for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said in an article. I suppose I should
Speaker 1: say an interview. It was an interview that an article
Speaker 1: was written from that you feel like serendipity lives on
Speaker 1: your front doorstep.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Can you say a little bit more about that as
Speaker 1: you talk about riding this wave?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's not fair.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a lot of friends where are
Speaker 3: struggling artists who are incredibly talented but just haven't had
Speaker 3: what I consider the lucky breaks that I've had, and
Speaker 3: I wish that I could share, you know, the sprinkles
Speaker 3: of serendipity with them. But everywhere I look, there's something
Speaker 3: positive happening, and my goal is to just trying to
Speaker 3: pay it forward as much as possible with philanthropy and
Speaker 3: with message and engagement. But I was signed to an
Speaker 3: indie label. First of all, I wasn't signed to any label.
Speaker 3: In the very beginning. I was going to work for
Speaker 3: a big corporation and they pushed my start date back.
Speaker 3: And because they pushed my start date back, the opportunity
Speaker 3: to go to go on tour in Europe. Opened up
Speaker 3: because one of the members of this hip hop group
Speaker 3: decided to stay home. So there was an extra seat
Speaker 3: in the bus, an extra bed in the hotel rooms.
Speaker 3: And the idea was that I could join the tour
Speaker 3: if I paid my way. And I had just received,
Speaker 3: you know, just graduated from college, received this like exit
Speaker 3: scholarship that I don't even again. Another serendipity, right, money,
Speaker 3: money on the way out, Okay, I'll take it. So
Speaker 3: I had some money to pay my way on this tour.
Speaker 3: Came home and started recording with the artists that I
Speaker 3: had toured with, and one of the recordings peaqued the
Speaker 3: attention of the record label that that artist was signed to,
Speaker 3: so they ended up signing me as a singer and
Speaker 3: not an MC. So all this time, this whole tour,
Speaker 3: I'd done, I'm a rapper and I'm writing hip hop music,
Speaker 3: and I decided to sing on one track, and the
Speaker 3: labels considering me a vocalist, and now I'm signed as
Speaker 3: a singer. And so I had to really like bootstrap
Speaker 3: myself to become a vocalist and a singer, trying so
Speaker 3: many different sounds and styles over the years, and then
Speaker 3: by the time I started working on my second album,
Speaker 3: Good Things, which holds the I Need a Dollar song,
Speaker 3: I kind of had figured out where the best place
Speaker 3: was to use my voice. So it wasn't in power
Speaker 3: and b it wasn't alternative rock. It was in this
Speaker 3: kind of folk soul vocal and it ended up being
Speaker 3: the mark of my early career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing, and I again I think about that thing.
Speaker 1: Would you have had the time and space to find
Speaker 1: the best use of your voice had that moment in
Speaker 1: your early career been happening in this kind of algorithmic
Speaker 1: machine we're in now, No.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think because of my attraction to process, I
Speaker 3: would be trying to figure out the algorithm how to
Speaker 3: be eat it, and it wouldn't It wouldn't give me.
Speaker 2: The opportunity to be my best artistic self.
Speaker 3: I'm so lucky that in high school I had the
Speaker 3: chance to put in ten thousand hours of free, expressive
Speaker 3: artistic creation. Yeah, without again, without the repercussions of.
Speaker 2: Having to be perfect, because.
Speaker 3: It wasn't going online right, it was being vetted by
Speaker 3: my very close associates, and once they approved, then it
Speaker 3: made it to you know, mixtapes that we then delivered
Speaker 3: to more people.
Speaker 1: I miss the mixtape when you talked earlier about like
Speaker 1: if you know, you know, when you finally when you're
Speaker 1: not a music maker but you love art, you know,
Speaker 1: artist of a different vertical, like to go, oh, now,
Speaker 1: now I get the heads up when the mixtapes are coming,
Speaker 1: like nothing was cooler, you know, as a young person
Speaker 1: finding the way in these creative scenes. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, just to hear you talk about like you
Speaker 1: workshop it, then it goes on the mixtape, then it
Speaker 1: goes out, then people come to see you in the venue.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know if we'll get it again,
Speaker 1: but I I'd be so thrilled if we could figure
Speaker 1: out a way.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, I'm going to try to figure out how
Speaker 3: that can be possible.
Speaker 2: I think that there is a.
Speaker 3: Hunger for it, but I want to, you know, try
Speaker 3: to My kids are a hop skip and a jump
Speaker 3: away from high school and so maybe, you know, I'll
Speaker 3: try to work shop it with them the rental venue
Speaker 3: where they can go and you know, have parties and
Speaker 3: be creative and explore.
Speaker 2: But one rule is that it has to happen offline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, phone free love it. I even think about what
Speaker 1: a big deal it was in that era when you'd
Speaker 1: hear about something after and then you'd see the you know,
Speaker 1: the five photos that came out because some great shooter
Speaker 1: was there and and but that was it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, six hundred grainy Instagram videos or whatever. And
Speaker 1: there's something I think really beautiful about all of that,
Speaker 1: and I do think it's why so many young people
Speaker 1: crave it. I hear from you know, my friends with teenagers.
Speaker 1: We've kind of we've kind of got two camps, like
Speaker 1: friends with little kids, like you know, five and under,
Speaker 1: and then we've got friends with teenagers. And the teenagers
Speaker 1: want to ask questions about my first show because they're like,
Speaker 1: everybody has a flip phone. They they all talk to
Speaker 1: each other about how they're feeling. No one's texting, and
Speaker 1: that kind of blows my mind. These kids are like, wait,
Speaker 1: we want that version of high school.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The beauty is the art of story, and so
Speaker 2: what is.
Speaker 3: You know, missing, is that with all of this video
Speaker 3: and all of these photos available, for every event that happens,
Speaker 3: you end also the ability to watch and experience in
Speaker 3: real time, you lose the art of story, and so nobody,
Speaker 3: nobody tells the story in a way that is compelling.
Speaker 3: You're receiving it in real time, and you get to
Speaker 3: interpret it at your own level, uh, with with your
Speaker 3: with your own you know, intellectual curiosity and your own
Speaker 3: ability to really process deeply. And we all have different abilities.
Speaker 3: But when you have a storyteller that's coming to you
Speaker 3: and dictating really what you should feel and how you feel,
Speaker 3: that's a whole different experience. And I think that's what
Speaker 3: is missing, is the Yeah, the great narrator.
Speaker 1: Yes, And what I miss about the great narrator is
Speaker 1: that it was being presented, as you said, with someone's
Speaker 1: story that also helped to encourage critical thinking and to
Speaker 1: question the story.
Speaker 3: To.
Speaker 1: Examine the facts of it, rather than just to look
Speaker 1: at one hundred images and decide you already know the story.
Speaker 1: The irony that we used to have narrators and that
Speaker 1: made us better critical thinkers is not lost on me.
Speaker 1: And it it gets to the root of something I've
Speaker 1: always really admired about you as a person in my
Speaker 1: age peer group, ish like you're one of those people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, we kind of came up together even
Speaker 1: though we never really knew each other. And I'm so
Speaker 1: happy you're here. But you've done something that I've seen
Speaker 1: be so important to so many artists in our generation,
Speaker 1: which is use your platform, really spend the privilege of
Speaker 1: your platform for others as an advocate, As an activist.
Speaker 1: You know, you've focused on mental health, you focused on
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform. You have so artfully told other people's
Speaker 1: stories to remind people that if we don't have community,
Speaker 1: we don't have anything. When did that spark get lit
Speaker 1: for you as an artist or was it always part
Speaker 1: of who you are as a person and the artistry
Speaker 1: he helps let it out right?
Speaker 3: I think there's definitely a moment where it was lit.
Speaker 3: And I would say, right after I need a dollar.
Speaker 3: I was very very excited to be, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of having this moment of visibility after being an obscure
Speaker 3: niche artist on an obscure niche record label. And I
Speaker 3: was asked to do some endorsements for different products, some
Speaker 3: luxury products, and one of them was a liquor brand
Speaker 3: that happened to be a gin that was my dad's
Speaker 3: favorite gin. I am not a drinker, never was, but
Speaker 3: I thought I'll take some photos and hold a martini,
Speaker 3: and then I'll have some bottles sent to my dad
Speaker 3: and he'll get the posters and it'll be a nice
Speaker 3: little father son moment. And the posters ended up being
Speaker 3: placed in the inner city across the country. And I
Speaker 3: got a phone call from one of my wife's friends
Speaker 3: who was an activist out of an organization called Community
Speaker 3: Coalition of South LA which was started by now Mayor
Speaker 3: Karen Bass, but back she was just a citizen of
Speaker 3: her community trying to make it better and she started
Speaker 3: a nonprofit organization. The phone call was a reprimand of
Speaker 3: my use of my celebrity and influence to sell alcohol
Speaker 3: and liquor in a community where this organization was trying
Speaker 3: to shut down liquor stores which had become a blight.
Speaker 2: On the community.
Speaker 3: And I had no connection and no idea, and I
Speaker 3: was really taken aback. So I use that as an
Speaker 3: opportunity to visit the org, learn what they were doing,
Speaker 3: and recognize how much my influence was a responsibility that
Speaker 3: I had to take seriously. And when I signed with
Speaker 3: a major record label after that, I promised that I'll
Speaker 3: use my music for positive social transformation. And you try
Speaker 3: to turn every music video into a PSA that could
Speaker 3: tell a story, to humanize the most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful, and you know, from learning lessons, and
Speaker 1: I think it's also very vulnerable. If I may say,
Speaker 1: to be willing to learn out loud, I think it's
Speaker 1: incredibly important to push back against this sort of weird
Speaker 1: algorithmic perfectionism, to say, oh, yeah, I did something that
Speaker 1: seemed fun and it turned out to have an impact
Speaker 1: that was terrible. FYI, this was my lesson. If you're
Speaker 1: ever in this position, ask these questions. You know, nobody
Speaker 1: gives us a handbook on how to do these things
Speaker 1: right and how to pull the thread till you get
Speaker 1: to the end of it. And it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: hear about that feedback and the way you chose to
Speaker 1: receive it, and then to think about what you've done
Speaker 1: with all of this since you know, as you said,
Speaker 1: the way you use your music, the way that you've
Speaker 1: stepped up, and I mean even helped join the president,
Speaker 1: you know, join President Biden to talk about him and
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, you know, to
Speaker 1: take a crisis for our communities and say, this is
Speaker 1: something a lot of people keep hidden out of pain
Speaker 1: and shame, and let's go talk about it literally from
Speaker 1: the most powerful, you know, stage in America. What was
Speaker 1: that like for you? Was that unnerving in any way
Speaker 1: or as you've built this sort of series of learnings
Speaker 1: and voicings for others, did it just feel like the
Speaker 1: next right thing?
Speaker 2: I would say the latter, It feels like the next
Speaker 2: right thing.
Speaker 3: I don't feel any real trepidation, and I look to
Speaker 3: my mentors and also heroes from the past that have
Speaker 3: basically educated me on what's possible. I think about, you know,
Speaker 3: was fortunate to meet Quaku and Endaba Mendela. These are
Speaker 3: the grandsons of Nelson Mendela, and the stories that I
Speaker 3: hear from them, and understanding Nelson Mandela's story and also
Speaker 3: Winnie Mendela's story that in the face of the most
Speaker 3: tremendous and horrendous adversity, torture, incarceration, that he still was
Speaker 3: able to maintain a level of humanity and compassion not
Speaker 3: just for himself, but for perceivably his enemies, which you know,
Speaker 3: he wouldn't call them his enemies because he didn't punish
Speaker 3: them when he came out of prison, he embraced everyone
Speaker 3: and moved forward with dignity. And I think about Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 3: who was a mentor of mine, someone that I had
Speaker 3: chance to sit with and learn from, and how he
Speaker 3: used his voice and celebrity in a way to encourage,
Speaker 3: you know, transformation that otherwise might not have happened without.
Speaker 2: His very privileged position.
Speaker 3: And there certainly was fear, you know, death threats, physical altercations,
Speaker 3: but somebody's got to do the work. And if you're
Speaker 3: in that position and you have that access, then the
Speaker 3: job is yours and you have to rise to the occasion.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, I just think I felt I
Speaker 3: feel like I've had the right guides along the way.
Speaker 1: Hmm. That's beautiful. And now a word from our sponsors
Speaker 1: that I really enjoy and I think you will too.
Speaker 1: It's the you know, the Harry's, the Jane Fondas that
Speaker 1: the folks who came before all of us, that when
Speaker 1: the pushback comes and the fear kind of sinks in
Speaker 1: of like, oh god, what does it mean to say
Speaker 1: this out loud and to keep beating this drama and
Speaker 1: to refuse to be quiet when you feel in terrible
Speaker 1: thing that you know, someone out there does that falls
Speaker 1: under the category of threat. I think in moments, especially
Speaker 1: like this one, you know this many days into this
Speaker 1: new all hands on deck administration, I just think, well,
Speaker 1: they did it. They did this work, don't. We don't
Speaker 1: get to do less. There is no world in which
Speaker 1: we can do less because we for for all the
Speaker 1: negative aspects of how interconnected we are, we do have
Speaker 1: the ability to do this. You and I can be
Speaker 1: in community from different sides of the country. We can
Speaker 1: get on a phone and speak to people and remind
Speaker 1: people of what's good and true. And yeah, when I
Speaker 1: get scared, I try to think about those people are there?
Speaker 1: Are there like leaders and mentors or folks you call, Like,
Speaker 1: who do you turn to when you get scared?
Speaker 2: It's mostly community, mostly community. You know.
Speaker 3: What reassures me is that Harry Belefonte was in the
Speaker 3: middle of all of the civil rights struggle, and many
Speaker 3: of his peers were murdered, doctor King, you know, many
Speaker 3: were beaten, but he was able to also survive and
Speaker 3: for decades and decades later to be able to tell
Speaker 3: the story and to tool up and train a whole
Speaker 3: new generation of artists. There, but there are there are others.
Speaker 2: You know that in my circle. Who are the folks
Speaker 2: that I go to when I'm.
Speaker 3: Trying to think through how we position ourselves for the
Speaker 3: for the next four years and and beyond. What are
Speaker 3: the what are the strategies, what is the goal you know?
Speaker 3: And what are how do we triage what are the
Speaker 3: things that are not as important as What are our
Speaker 3: highest priorities and how do we make sure we maximize
Speaker 3: those highest priorities?
Speaker 2: Yes, and how do we do it in a way
Speaker 2: in this very.
Speaker 3: Information sensitive or hyper informat informed society. How do we
Speaker 3: do it in a way that is information sensitive mhm
Speaker 3: h and in ways that doesn't make our strategy and
Speaker 3: concepts vulnerable two.
Speaker 2: To being thwarted. So there yeah, lessons and from.
Speaker 3: The past, there are technologies that exist that didn't exist then,
Speaker 3: and we've just.
Speaker 2: Got to be thoughtful about about how we how we manage.
Speaker 3: But really what it comes down to is as well
Speaker 3: like making sure that we are using our influence for
Speaker 3: the betterment of humanity, all humanity, and we are standing
Speaker 3: up for the rights and of indignity of.
Speaker 2: The most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: The waight of it feels very immense and close to
Speaker 1: me right now. But I do feel very grateful that
Speaker 1: so many of us, in our little worlds that all
Speaker 1: kind of vend diagram together in the ways that they do,
Speaker 1: are both preparing and slowing down just enough to ask
Speaker 1: these kinds of questions. That has been one of the
Speaker 1: great lessons for me is that in the immediate, you know,
Speaker 1: fury or heartbreak that can come to witnessing injustice, like
Speaker 1: I have a spicy Italian lady in me, Like I
Speaker 1: can just get out there and start screaming and to
Speaker 1: hold that passion, but also take a breath and go
Speaker 1: to a friend and say, Okay, what's the plan. How
Speaker 1: do I scream effectively? How do I instill the fear
Speaker 1: my grandmother knew how to instill in me effectively? And
Speaker 1: how do I also enter the spaces that require immense
Speaker 1: empathy with that empathy on my sleeve and just be
Speaker 1: present to support people. And I wonder if maybe the
Speaker 1: root of that willingness to be curious is from the
Speaker 1: thing we all share, which is being a storyteller. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I believe that we all have the storytelling capacity, and
Speaker 3: we all have to those of us who are recognized
Speaker 3: for it have to lead with it, and we've got
Speaker 3: to lead with it in a way that's going to
Speaker 3: empower others use their storytelling.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Quite often we'll be at some public event and my
Speaker 3: wife and I am I kind of retreat because I
Speaker 3: feel like, if it's not my show, I don't need
Speaker 3: to be on stage, and it's an opportunity for other
Speaker 3: people to be seen and on stage. And my wife
Speaker 3: always reminds me, just like, but this is people love
Speaker 3: your voice, and you know, why would you restrict them
Speaker 3: of it? And the part of me is like, well,
Speaker 3: they didn't. They haven't asked for it, So I don't
Speaker 3: want to impose. But she's right, though, there's you know,
Speaker 3: there is always an opportunity with the right intention and
Speaker 3: with with humility two quote unquote impose hm hmm, if
Speaker 3: you can do something.
Speaker 2: Good with it.
Speaker 1: I like that impose for good. Yeah, it feels nice.
Speaker 3: You can use your your fiery Italian voice in some moments. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And as long as you're doing it for for good, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, Yeah, I think it's I think it's crucial,
Speaker 1: you know. I know it gets set a lot, but truly,
Speaker 1: now more than ever, I want to go back to
Speaker 1: something that you said earlier, you know, about how you
Speaker 1: begin to realize that even a music video in a
Speaker 1: way could be a PSA because the new album, I'm
Speaker 1: so excited it's here. We've waited as I'm leaving and
Speaker 1: like coming back as a fan, and then I'll show
Speaker 1: exit stage left and that your interviewer will be back.
Speaker 1: But you know when you wait and you're so excited
Speaker 1: as someone who loves someone else's art, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's here. And then of course I was like, of
Speaker 1: course every song is tied specifically to an action you
Speaker 1: can take for positive social change. Of course it is,
Speaker 1: and I just think it's so cool. So I'll join
Speaker 1: the chorus of people saying bravo. But can you talk
Speaker 1: about how you how first of all do you say
Speaker 1: this is the album I want to release after you know,
Speaker 1: see years noodling and finding this version of this year's voice,
Speaker 1: And then how do you kind of layer this larger
Speaker 1: mission so that we're not just your listeners, but we're
Speaker 1: also we're also becoming a community of folks doing something right.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say that, you know, again the serendipity
Speaker 3: on my doorstep. I'm not a bleeding hard artist there's
Speaker 3: plenty of tragedy and things in my life to be
Speaker 3: sad about, but I have a very optimistic and positive outlook,
Speaker 3: and I enjoy this opportunity to create and share with
Speaker 3: this megaphone that I have for the whole world. And
Speaker 3: I recognize that in the marketplace there's so much darkness,
Speaker 3: lots of you know, depression and anxiety and misogyny and
Speaker 3: violence and substance abuse, and that's I don't think I
Speaker 3: need to contribute to any of that. And I could
Speaker 3: tell an album worth of stories about myself and glorify
Speaker 3: myself in a way that would probably make me more
Speaker 3: popular than I am. But I also I'm not compelled
Speaker 3: to do that. I don't feel that it's necessary. I
Speaker 3: have to think we have enough self promoting narcissists in.
Speaker 2: The music business. And I feel like, okay, well, what
Speaker 2: can I do.
Speaker 3: Let me show up in the way on music, on tape,
Speaker 3: on record as I show up in community, and how
Speaker 3: is that that is?
Speaker 2: Whenever I get a phone call or.
Speaker 3: I get invited to engage with a nonprofit organization, I
Speaker 3: try to find a way. And I thought, well, posting
Speaker 3: you or media assets online is certainly helpful. To my
Speaker 3: to my fan base that works. Maybe shooting a p
Speaker 3: s A for a video, or showing up to the
Speaker 3: gala and performing at the galaff you can raise funds.
Speaker 3: That I'm sure is very helpful. But if my forte
Speaker 3: is storytelling and songwriting, how can I lean in heavily
Speaker 3: on my passion and expertise using your messaging and and
Speaker 3: work in the community so that two plus two equals five.
Speaker 3: And it's not that I came up with this idea.
Speaker 3: I know there's been the we Are the worlds of
Speaker 3: the past. There's there have been the bono and YouTube
Speaker 3: you know one, There's Bob Marley with Redemption songs. There's
Speaker 3: so so many artists in the past have done the
Speaker 3: message music or the positive social mission. But I thought,
Speaker 3: why not really lean in with an album that suggests
Speaker 3: to my peers that that era is not over and
Speaker 3: that we can continue to do that. And here's an
Speaker 3: album full of songs.
Speaker 2: The least you can do is one yes.
Speaker 3: And so each song is inspired by a nonprofit organization
Speaker 3: or a positive social mission. One of the songs is
Speaker 3: called Breakthrough. It was inspired by a nonprofit organization called
Speaker 3: Breakthrough that is helping returning citizens matriculate back into society
Speaker 3: with jobs, education, housing to reduce recidivism.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Another song on the album is called Don't Go Alone.
Speaker 3: It's written inspired by an African proverb. But really I'm
Speaker 3: promoting in Service of the Phoenix, which is an addiction
Speaker 3: recovery organization that uses collective activity like exercise or hiking
Speaker 3: as a modality to combat substance abuse. This is your
Speaker 3: accountability family, your accountability team, and you just find new
Speaker 3: friends and new ways to engage to avoid, you know,
Speaker 3: going to the bottle or the pill. And so each
Speaker 3: song is built around that concept. And I would be
Speaker 3: remiss to not mention that my wife was probably the
Speaker 3: most inspiring factor in making this decision because we were
Speaker 3: the spokes couples for an organization called Peace over Violence
Speaker 3: here in Los Angeles that does awareness for domestic abuse,
Speaker 3: and there was a campaign every year. There's an annual
Speaker 3: campaign called Denim Day, which is messaging around sexual violence
Speaker 3: and how.
Speaker 2: It's important for.
Speaker 3: Men just as much as as any anyone to recognize
Speaker 3: that our role in sexual violence. My wife wrote a
Speaker 3: song after watching The Hunting Grounds I think is the
Speaker 3: name of the film about rape on campus called never
Speaker 3: Said Yes, because the conversation around you know, sexual violence
Speaker 3: is always very directed and pointed at blaming the victim,
Speaker 3: saying well, you know, did you say no?
Speaker 2: Did you.
Speaker 3: Lead the perpetrator on? You know, it's never a question
Speaker 3: of did you say yes?
Speaker 2: Right? And if you didn't say yes. So she wrote
Speaker 2: a song called never Said Yes.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was brilliant and you know, great
Speaker 3: idea to take the social mission, put it into a
Speaker 3: mantra that can become the language to support that mission
Speaker 3: in the absence of, you know, a narrator.
Speaker 2: You know, now you have this.
Speaker 3: This quick, easy SoundBite that helps to tell the story
Speaker 3: in a way that people can digest quickly.
Speaker 1: It's really beautiful, And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.
Speaker 1: One of the things that strikes me about the opportunity
Speaker 1: that you've created here is with an album's worth of songs,
Speaker 1: each song having a focus for a cause, you offer
Speaker 1: up a board to an audience to say, which of
Speaker 1: these things resonates with you the most deeply? Which of
Speaker 1: these things will you join the call for? Because you know,
Speaker 1: I remember early in my career people would always say
Speaker 1: to me, we have to pick something, pick a cause.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how is working on a more civil society
Speaker 1: going to be accomplished with one thing? That seems ridiculous
Speaker 1: to me? And I actually think one of our greatest
Speaker 1: strengths is the fact that when we get to speak
Speaker 1: to so many people, the more you can teach or
Speaker 1: showcase how interconnected these things are, the more likely you
Speaker 1: are to inspire each person paying attention to what you're
Speaker 1: sharing with the thing that most inspires them. Because not
Speaker 1: every fan is going to have the same cause, but
Speaker 1: everyone's going to be inspired by something. So what an
Speaker 1: amazing What an amazing thing to a layer this creative
Speaker 1: process with so many opportunities for real passion and connection.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm really happy about it. I think it's just the
Speaker 3: volume one of many to come, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: keep exploiting this this method for the long haul.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite song on the album?
Speaker 2: Very hard to say.
Speaker 3: Don't Go Alone is so infectious to me, the message,
Speaker 3: you know, being about if you want to go fast,
Speaker 3: you can go alone. If you want to go far,
Speaker 3: you go together, and that being this African proverb that
Speaker 3: really makes so much sense about how society and communities
Speaker 3: can can operate, and then deep inside the music is
Speaker 3: everything that I grew up with parents coming from Central
Speaker 3: America via the Caribbean, so lots of you know, Latin
Speaker 3: and Caribbean sounds and then African diaspora African sounds in
Speaker 3: the music. But then there's on the other side of
Speaker 3: that sonic landscape is this very calm and relaxed kind
Speaker 3: of story of father and son, which is Daddy told me,
Speaker 3: so the concept of.
Speaker 2: My relationship with my dad and the lessons that I
Speaker 2: learned from him.
Speaker 3: And there's I guess there's a favorite moment or reason
Speaker 3: for every song on the.
Speaker 2: Project, But yeah, those are two highlights for sure.
Speaker 1: Do you write a whole slew of songs and then
Speaker 1: start to narrow them down for the album or are
Speaker 1: you a person who finds each sort of concept that
Speaker 1: you're processing in song and then you have an album.
Speaker 3: I think that putting an album together is a sculpting activity.
Speaker 3: So I build up a whole mountain full of songs,
Speaker 3: and then I peel away the layers so that the
Speaker 3: remaining songs are the ones that tell the story I
Speaker 3: feel is most necessary. And that's that's the general the
Speaker 3: general way of writing for me to just keep writing
Speaker 3: all the time and piece together, put together the album
Speaker 3: based on what the theme overall theme should be.
Speaker 1: So interesting. My last and favorite question to ask everyone,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious from where you're sitting and all these
Speaker 1: things you're thinking about and this repertoire, this new repertoire
Speaker 1: of music you're about to give to us today, what
Speaker 1: feels like you're work in progress?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 3: What comes to mind is yesterday last night, in conversation
Speaker 3: with my kids, we did cuddle time just before they
Speaker 3: go to bed, thinking about their eagerness to engage in
Speaker 3: the art world. And this work in progress is, you know,
Speaker 3: building kids that are resilient and thoughtful and full of
Speaker 3: heart and intelligent and less artistic and executive. So you know,
Speaker 3: just before they went to bed, they spent a few
Speaker 3: minutes coming up with some songs that that they might
Speaker 3: that might end up being their first their first project together.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: As a brother and sister, that's that's I'd say, that's
Speaker 3: my work in progress. It's like these these beautiful lives
Speaker 3: that my wife and I have been fortunate enough to
Speaker 3: receive and steward.
Speaker 1: M hm, stewardship. That's major to watch your babies creating
Speaker 1: in front of you and looking at you like, Dad,
Speaker 1: is this good? What a trip that has to be?
Speaker 1: I just love that for you. Yeah, M well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, thank you for joining me for this
Speaker 1: to I. You know, as I said earlier, it's as
Speaker 1: a as a fan for so long. It's such a
Speaker 1: joy to be able to talk to you, not just
Speaker 1: about the work, but about the way you see the world.
Speaker 1: And I'm so thrilled for the new record. And I
Speaker 1: will say on behalf of many many people I know
Speaker 1: who are amped about it. We all thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this has been such a joy.
Speaker 2: Likewise,