Speaker 1: Y'all already know that navigating the online world can be
Speaker 1: tricky and complicated. That's why here at There Are New
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet. We just launched a brand new
Speaker 1: newsletter where I'll be taking your Internet questions and conundrums.
Speaker 1: To subscribe and submit a question, just go to Tangoti
Speaker 1: dot com slash newsletter and I can't wait to connect
Speaker 1: with you there There Are No Girls on the Internet
Speaker 1: as a production of My Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative.
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. So I'm not gonna lie. It's been
Speaker 1: a pretty rough few weeks and usually to show up
Speaker 1: and grapple with whatever is going on on the podcast,
Speaker 1: you know, bring it to the pod, but honestly, I
Speaker 1: just don't have it in me, and that feeling it
Speaker 1: really reminded me that, you know, sometimes it's okay to
Speaker 1: step back and step away and unplug when things just
Speaker 1: feel like too much. So this is me doing that,
Speaker 1: and I'm doing that by revisiting a joyful episode of
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet about one of
Speaker 1: my favorite overlooked tech heroes, Missy Elliott, and I hope
Speaker 1: that wherever you're listening from whatever you're carrying that you're
Speaker 1: also making time to engage with things that bring you
Speaker 1: joy and comfort to and I also wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you all for deciding to spend a little bit of
Speaker 1: time listening to the show today. It really means a
Speaker 1: lot knowing that you're listening. Prince David Bowie Les Paul.
Speaker 1: When we think about the intersection of tech, innovation and music,
Speaker 1: it's not difficult to think about men who fit the bill,
Speaker 1: But what about all the female digital visionaries in their
Speaker 1: impact time music enter Melissa our Nett Elliott also known
Speaker 1: as See Elliott. Okay, so some of you all might
Speaker 1: be thinking that maybe this whole episode is just an
Speaker 1: excuse for me to take a little break from the
Speaker 1: depressing news cycle and talk about my love of Missy Elliott,
Speaker 1: And you know what, You're not totally wrong, but Corl
Speaker 1: has not always gotten credit for the visionary that she is.
Speaker 1: Her work as a producer changed the landscape of music
Speaker 1: in ways that we can still here today, and her
Speaker 1: innovative music videos blend science fiction and afro futurism to
Speaker 1: throw off outdated patriarchal chains of what it means to
Speaker 1: be a black woman. Now. We talk a lot about
Speaker 1: girl squads and feminism and music, but for Missy Elliott,
Speaker 1: that looks like working with other women in the music industry,
Speaker 1: amplifying their voices and acting as a creative collaborator with them.
Speaker 1: No Missy is known for her technical production prowess. Alongside
Speaker 1: her longtime creative collaborator Timbaland, She's written and produced scores
Speaker 1: of songs for other artists, many of whom are women
Speaker 1: whose work she helped find mainstream success. Here's just a
Speaker 1: little taste of them. Music she's helped produced Aaliyah One
Speaker 1: in a Million, Sierra one, two Steps, seven oh two,
Speaker 1: where my Girls at Beyonce signs. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know a lot of the records I've written or produced,
Speaker 1: so that's a highlight for me as a woman. Elliott
Speaker 1: told The Associated Press. I always said if a man
Speaker 1: had done half the records that I've done, we would
Speaker 1: know all about it, and Missy is a right. It's
Speaker 1: almost hard for me to overstate the impact Missy Elliot's
Speaker 1: work has had on me personally, and she's actually one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast at all.
Speaker 1: One day I was thinking about all the different ways
Speaker 1: she shaped music and music videos and l sture and
Speaker 1: the way music is made, And I thought, why aren't
Speaker 1: we constantly talking about Missy Elliott all the time? I
Speaker 1: was even Missy Elliott for Halloween when I was younger.
Speaker 1: Check the photo in the show description if you want
Speaker 1: to see evidence. Missy grew up in the South, in
Speaker 1: a small town called Portsmouth, Virginia, and I'm from a
Speaker 1: small town Virginia too. We both grew up in the church,
Speaker 1: singing in church choirs. The summer of nine was a
Speaker 1: particularly hot and muggy one in Virginia. My family had
Speaker 1: just moved to a new neighborhood and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know anyone. I still remember it so clearly that July,
Speaker 1: the path Finder had just landed on Mars to explore
Speaker 1: whether or not life could really exist on that planet.
Speaker 1: I remember watching it on the news from the fourth
Speaker 1: of July. I spent a lot of that summer up
Speaker 1: in my room thinking about things like aliens and outer
Speaker 1: space and what the future looked like. Well, that and
Speaker 1: my other favorite pastime, which was watching music videos on MTV.
Speaker 1: That was also the same month when Missy Elliott dropped
Speaker 1: her debut album, Super Dupifly, and it sounded like something
Speaker 1: at once from another planet and the future. It debuted
Speaker 1: at the number to be slot on the Billboard two hundred,
Speaker 1: the highest charting debut for any female rapper in history.
Speaker 1: Missy was just getting started and she was already charting
Speaker 1: new territory. When I was young, it didn't really seem
Speaker 1: like there were that many ways to be a black woman.
Speaker 1: I loved the community of strong black women who raised
Speaker 1: me on church, candy and gospel music, but it didn't
Speaker 1: really match how I felt inside. No, I didn't know
Speaker 1: it at the time, but looking back, it had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with me coming in terms with being queer.
Speaker 1: I just felt like a weirdo, and I was always
Speaker 1: searching for permission that being a weirdo was okay. So
Speaker 1: whenever I saw a black person doing something different and new,
Speaker 1: I latched onto it immediately. I was obsessed with black
Speaker 1: weirdos like Grace, Drones and Prince. I also liked any
Speaker 1: story that was about aliens having to blend in on Earth,
Speaker 1: and sometimes when I felt out of place, I'd pretend
Speaker 1: I was from another planet too. So the first time
Speaker 1: I saw the video for Missy Elliot's The Rain, my
Speaker 1: mind was blown. I had never seen anything like it,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking, is this person from outer space?
Speaker 1: Missy probably understands where I'm coming from. When she goes
Speaker 1: back and looks at her old videos, she thinks, what
Speaker 1: was I on. Here's what she had to say about
Speaker 1: looking back on those videos in an interview. I know
Speaker 1: that was my smoke days, but I was like WHOA.
Speaker 1: At the time. When I was doing those videos, I
Speaker 1: didn't think much of it. I thought they were hot,
Speaker 1: but I didn't critique it or go into detail or
Speaker 1: say this is some next level ship. Take the iconic
Speaker 1: video for Missy Elliott's The Rain. There's a link to
Speaker 1: the video and the show description if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: it for a while. Her innovative visuals you science fiction
Speaker 1: and afro futurism to throw off the outdated, patriarchal chains
Speaker 1: of what it means to be a black woman. And
Speaker 1: even at fourteen, I picked up what Missy was putting down. Now,
Speaker 1: as an adult, I wanted to know more about her
Speaker 1: work and how it fit within this context. And it
Speaker 1: turns out I'm not the only one asking the deep
Speaker 1: questions when it comes to Missy Elliott. Hi, I'm Steve
Speaker 1: Shabiro Um the z Roy Professor of English at Wayne
Speaker 1: State University. I'm a scholar and I worked mostly on
Speaker 1: science fiction and music videos. Dr shaviro says Missy's music
Speaker 1: just sounds like the future, and you can hear her
Speaker 1: influence in all different kinds of music. Today. The Chemical
Speaker 1: Brothers just came up with a new album and it's
Speaker 1: a videos for Interesting and but it sounds like if
Speaker 1: this music could have made nineteen eighties. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: great music, but it could have been easily been made
Speaker 1: in nineteen because it's that kind of sound with Mrs Elliott.
Speaker 1: Even though she's doing her own sound, which recognizably on
Speaker 1: temper nineties and early two thousand's, it seems in temporary
Speaker 1: at the same time, and that's partly because lots of
Speaker 1: other people are so influenced by her. I think that
Speaker 1: is something I love about Missy Elliot's music is that
Speaker 1: when you listen to it, it sounds like it could
Speaker 1: be written in nineteen eighty nine nine, and also it
Speaker 1: sounds like music that could come out today, And also
Speaker 1: it sounds like music from the future. You know, she's
Speaker 1: been quoted as talking about her how her style and
Speaker 1: her music is so futuristic, and I hear that so
Speaker 1: much in her music. You know, it's timeless and futuristic
Speaker 1: all at once. She and Timberland twenty years ago. We're
Speaker 1: experiending with you know, very odd, odd rhythms and with
Speaker 1: with things which push the edges of I mean, it's
Speaker 1: still damsable, but it pushes the edges of of what
Speaker 1: a groove is. It's the best way I can say it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that that's I don't feel that
Speaker 1: that's adequate. That's sort of how I think about it.
Speaker 1: In his article super Dupifly Black Women as Cyborgs and
Speaker 1: hip hop Videos, Shavera argues that her song The Rain
Speaker 1: is about her using sci fi inspired cyborg visuals to
Speaker 1: subvert the patriarchy and what we think of as traditional
Speaker 1: black femininity. He writes, the videos thus raised the question
Speaker 1: about identity and otherness, and about power and control. They
Speaker 1: asked us to think about how we're being transformed as
Speaker 1: a result of our encounters with the new digital and
Speaker 1: virtual technologies. Or better, they raised the question of who
Speaker 1: we are as beings whose very embodiment is tied up
Speaker 1: with technological change as well as the descriptions of gender
Speaker 1: and race. Even the song's main sample and People's classic
Speaker 1: N three hit I Can't Stand the Rain, is a
Speaker 1: kind of subversion. And in the original song and its
Speaker 1: post breakup and heartbroken, plagued by the sound of the
Speaker 1: rain outside of her window, but in Missy's version, it's
Speaker 1: raining indoors and she's broken up with some guy before
Speaker 1: he can number. I've been a miss Elliott fan my
Speaker 1: whole life, and this was something that weirdly had never
Speaker 1: occurred to me, that the her use of Anne People's
Speaker 1: sample of the rain actually subverts that because that original
Speaker 1: song that she samples is about a woman who you know,
Speaker 1: her man has left her and she's that's down to
Speaker 1: the rain is just making her think about it, and
Speaker 1: Missy in that song uses the sample but completely subverts
Speaker 1: it and flips it on. It's on its head. You know,
Speaker 1: she's the one who's breaking up with the guy before
Speaker 1: you can dump right and again. And if it's you
Speaker 1: know the way, as I think I said in the
Speaker 1: article the way um the way the video works, it's
Speaker 1: only raining on the sound stage inside, while on the
Speaker 1: scenes outside it's like this hyper real colors, you know, green, blue,
Speaker 1: blue sky, green grass, and and it's two thousands one
Speaker 1: monols in the background. So the fact that they have
Speaker 1: the rain indoors instead of outdoors, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: it's signifies in her in a real way. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and her back. You probably already that
Speaker 1: Missy Elliott is synonymous with iconic music videos. I probably
Speaker 1: spent hours in my room watching her trippy visuals when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. An iconic music video could make
Speaker 1: an artist. But these days, artists can get big without
Speaker 1: having video at all, So labels don't really spend the
Speaker 1: money to produce them what they used to, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a shame you don't even get to see
Speaker 1: them as an expression of an artist's vision anymore. Missy's
Speaker 1: visuals were all about being subversive. You know how she
Speaker 1: rocks that iconic black inflatable suit and helmet in the
Speaker 1: rain video. Shaveriro says it's a futuristic response to her
Speaker 1: being shut out of the music industry for daring to
Speaker 1: be a black woman who wasn't a size For this
Speaker 1: whole emphasis on women's standards of women beauty for a
Speaker 1: bit for the male gaze being you know, you know,
Speaker 1: slender and things like that, and she she's violating this.
Speaker 1: But it's like that that plastic thing is both it's
Speaker 1: it's doing it's both emphasizing and concealing her body at
Speaker 1: the same time, which is like, I mean, other people
Speaker 1: have noted how um some women musicians deliberately try to
Speaker 1: resist being you know, hyper sexualized by like wearing loose
Speaker 1: or baggy clothes and stuff like that. And there's a
Speaker 1: whole list. I mean, you can think about the nine
Speaker 1: early um TLC videos where they wore these baggy pants
Speaker 1: with like condoms on its decorations and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: which was smart and funny, I mean, but today's seen
Speaker 1: something like Billie Eilish, she just said to do the
Speaker 1: reason she were as its oversighted clothes because she doesn't
Speaker 1: want people to be completely objectifying her body. So miss
Speaker 1: Elogy it is, I mean, her career for whatever is
Speaker 1: that she wanted to you know, she was doing production
Speaker 1: work for for Leah and many other artists and writing
Speaker 1: songs and stuff like that. She wanted to perform herself,
Speaker 1: but was told by people in the industry that she
Speaker 1: wasn't attractive enough to be a star, and so she's
Speaker 1: always faced faced that kind of thing, and and the
Speaker 1: way she's so it's a way of affirming herself. And
Speaker 1: it's sort of doing two things at once, because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, it is it's kind of loose or
Speaker 1: and literally it's baggage and seems he made out of
Speaker 1: plastic bags. So it's rather saying no, you can't just
Speaker 1: look at my curves and say and you objectify them.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's emphasizing her physicality and her
Speaker 1: presence there. It makes her bigger, so it makes her
Speaker 1: fill up the screen board, so it makes it force you.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like doing these both things at
Speaker 1: the same time. I think, does that make sense? That
Speaker 1: makes so much sense. Here's all Missy described it on
Speaker 1: a v H one's Behind the Music. We came up
Speaker 1: with this idea of being in a big plastic garbage bag. Basically,
Speaker 1: I said, almost, show them I'm gonna make a record
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be big, and I'm gonna be big too,
Speaker 1: and I mean literally, i'lmost stay my size and have
Speaker 1: a big record. And that's that. Now, this actually makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Missy was shut out of making
Speaker 1: a public facing music video because of her looks. In
Speaker 1: Raven Simone, then the Adorable child star of the Cosby
Speaker 1: Show debut or hit single, That's what Little Girls Are
Speaker 1: Made Of. It was written, produced by Missy, and Missy
Speaker 1: also performs a rap on it, but in the music video,
Speaker 1: a thinner and lighter skinned actress lip syncs Missy's part.
Speaker 1: Missy recalls that she was intentionally left out of the
Speaker 1: video shoot because she didn't fit the image they were
Speaker 1: looking for. Nobody even told me they shot the video.
Speaker 1: I heard late it was like, you didn't quite fit
Speaker 1: the image that we were looking forward. I was like,
Speaker 1: what they trying to say? Unfat immediately like oh they
Speaker 1: they known the big girls. I said every curse words.
Speaker 1: I was distrayed and l magazine in She said the
Speaker 1: rejection was so painful she almost gave up on being
Speaker 1: a star, but now she's embraced having her own brand
Speaker 1: of black femininity, telling the New York Daily News what
Speaker 1: a blessing it is to be known for being different.
Speaker 1: Missy really sets herself apart by playing with our understanding
Speaker 1: of race and gender. It's a kind of hyper stylization,
Speaker 1: but which doesn't fit in with, you know, traditional stereotypical,
Speaker 1: sexist beauty norms. So it's very much a form of
Speaker 1: individualist self assertion against being stereotyped in traditional gender ways.
Speaker 1: There's a real power when women claim our expertise and impact.
Speaker 1: Missy Elliott openly talks about the massive impact she's had
Speaker 1: on the music industry, an industry that hasn't always been
Speaker 1: quick to recognize her. She calls herself an innovator. She
Speaker 1: doesn't wait for the industry to define her own success.
Speaker 1: She defines it herself. And why should we wait around
Speaker 1: for someone to tell us our value and our worth.
Speaker 1: There is such a power in saying, yes, the workout
Speaker 1: produces changing the game, and I'm going to own it.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Missy does. Do you think of
Speaker 1: Missy Elliott personally? Do you think of Missy Elliott as
Speaker 1: a digital innovator? Yeah, I mean definitely because she I mean,
Speaker 1: she's always been doing new things. And it's partly again
Speaker 1: being a woman and presenting herself in a way that
Speaker 1: you know, only men were privileged to her. They're refusing
Speaker 1: the roles that women were religated to. But also I
Speaker 1: can I agree it does seem again, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to quantify this or it's very hard for me, especially
Speaker 1: to put my finger on how why it is which
Speaker 1: is doing this. But yeah, it always does feels it
Speaker 1: feels futuristic, it always feels it has a kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sort of like has an edge. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like. There's a famous statement by Lennon, the
Speaker 1: leader of the Bulsher Revolution, when somebody said, are assured
Speaker 1: not being too radical, and Lennon replied, the only trouble
Speaker 1: is it's really hard to be as we must be
Speaker 1: as radical as reality itself. So that's the kind of
Speaker 1: phrase I would apply him as the Elliott She's always
Speaker 1: he's one of those pe people is trying to be
Speaker 1: as radical as reality itself. I love it. You know,
Speaker 1: I was not accepting a Lenin quote now right, how
Speaker 1: you are going? But I love it. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's a it's a great proach. So
Speaker 1: it's worth taking out of context, you know, definitely. I
Speaker 1: mean that's isn't that part of I mean, that's part
Speaker 1: of what a lot of art today does, including hip hop,
Speaker 1: is taking stuff out of context. And you know, on
Speaker 1: one side, they want you to recognize the original context.
Speaker 1: The other side, they're really doing something really different and
Speaker 1: original with it, so it doesn't have the same meaning
Speaker 1: it had originally. So I've always thought of Missy Elliott
Speaker 1: as a tech innovator, as a digital innovator. I also
Speaker 1: think we're so much more comfortable calling male artists and
Speaker 1: male musicians innovators. No one will about an eye if
Speaker 1: you called David Bowie or Prince an innovator, but we're
Speaker 1: so much less comfortable applying that label to women. Do
Speaker 1: you think that that's true, that we're less comfortable applying
Speaker 1: the label of innovator or genius to a female creative.
Speaker 1: That's probably true out of general sexism. I actually think
Speaker 1: it's really powerful and important for black female creatives, especially
Speaker 1: to be claiming these titles for ourselves and not waiting
Speaker 1: for somebody to say, yes, you are a genius, Yes
Speaker 1: you are an innovator, but saying yeah, I know I'm innovative.
Speaker 1: I'm making music that nobody else is making. I'm taking risks,
Speaker 1: I'm taking chances. Yes I am an innovator. My only
Speaker 1: reservation is that I'm not thrilled with the word innovator,
Speaker 1: just because anytime any word gets adopted by business schools
Speaker 1: and soti repeated about everything. But you know, in mainstream discourse,
Speaker 1: now you know, shave it, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: taking away the you know, the headphone porch and replacing
Speaker 1: it with something else you need an adapter is described
Speaker 1: as innovation. You know on the phone should like that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's always just depressing when words which have
Speaker 1: positive metis to get so you know, turned into business
Speaker 1: speak that you wonder whether it's use them anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: right there with you more. There are no girls on
Speaker 1: the internet after this quick right, and we're back. Missy
Speaker 1: stopped making music for a while to deal with her
Speaker 1: health after finding out she had Graves disease, but she
Speaker 1: is solidly back and only recently she getting the kind
Speaker 1: of respect as a digital innovator that she deserves. This
Speaker 1: is Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award means so much to me.
Speaker 1: I have worked diligently for over two decades. Last year
Speaker 1: she won MTVS Vanguard Award, given to commemorate outstanding contributions
Speaker 1: and profound impact on music, videos and popular culture, and
Speaker 1: some are even campaigning to have the award once named
Speaker 1: after Michael Jackson to be renamed in Missy's honor. She
Speaker 1: also earned an honorary degree from the prestigious Berkeley School
Speaker 1: of Music. In Katie Perry headlined the Super Bowl halftime show.
Speaker 1: She brought out Missy Elliott as a special guest. Despite
Speaker 1: not having made any new music for years, Missy's performance
Speaker 1: was a massive hit. All three songs she performed entered
Speaker 1: the top ten lists on iTunes, even though they were
Speaker 1: all several years old. Google released their top Google searches
Speaker 1: during the performance, and they were all from youngsters googling
Speaker 1: who is Missy Elliott. Missy took an instride, tweeting, the
Speaker 1: kids think I'm a new artist and I'm about to
Speaker 1: blow up like Paul mccarthney Laura have Mercy, and I
Speaker 1: think it's cool that new kids think I'm a new artist.
Speaker 1: That just goes to show you that I'm still on
Speaker 1: fire and we'll rip downstages. Twenty years later, Missy Elliott
Speaker 1: just now is sort of getting a lot more recognition
Speaker 1: than I feel she's gotten in the past. Like she's
Speaker 1: spoken about how the fact that you know she's been
Speaker 1: she's been behind so many important songwriters and musicians, but
Speaker 1: doesn't really get the credit, and she's been been clear
Speaker 1: that if she was a man, she feels like she would.
Speaker 1: Of course that's obviously true. Why do you think right now,
Speaker 1: in this moment we're in culturally, Missy Elliott is sort
Speaker 1: of getting getting those props you know she was she
Speaker 1: just became the first rapper to get an honorary degree
Speaker 1: from the Berkeley s College of Music. She's getting them,
Speaker 1: a Vanguard Awards, all of this, it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of the problem, I think is that
Speaker 1: she's been ill for you know, for much of the
Speaker 1: last decade, so she couldn't mean her last full length
Speaker 1: album was I think in two thousand five, and since
Speaker 1: then she's released a few singles, and you know, maybe so,
Speaker 1: I mean, it may be partly just that she's now
Speaker 1: in better health and more able to do stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's like four or five year I mean,
Speaker 1: she's she's made partial comebacks that people forget about you
Speaker 1: if you don't have a new album out. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I was, we were, this is like she was. She
Speaker 1: shed performed in the Super Bowl mid you know, halftime show,
Speaker 1: like four or five years ago. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: exact year and my kids, who are well they're now seven.
Speaker 1: My two daughters they're seventeen and fourteen now, so this
Speaker 1: is like they were a few years younger. They were
Speaker 1: like tweens that weren't quite teenagers yet we were watching
Speaker 1: the you know, midtime. I forgot who the main headline
Speaker 1: there was, but missy Ella came out of it, and
Speaker 1: my kids were just like, who says she's amazing? Like
Speaker 1: she they never heard of her, of course, because they
Speaker 1: were her babies when her last album come out. We're
Speaker 1: in this very kind of polaroisued time we're on. At
Speaker 1: the same time we have like rising fascism in our
Speaker 1: government and in lots of governments around the world, and
Speaker 1: yet at the same time we have a much bigger
Speaker 1: explosion of multicultural and multi gender I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: gain less and people trans people, people of different races
Speaker 1: and ethnicities, you know, So you have this contradiction. One hand,
Speaker 1: is much more emphasis on the multiplicity at the same
Speaker 1: time that we have this kind of fascist backlash which
Speaker 1: often seems to rule both the United States and other countries.
Speaker 1: So it's a very kind of weirdly for a time,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to interpret that, but it
Speaker 1: seems to me that we're pushing these two directions at
Speaker 1: the same time. Oh, that's kind of a hopeful way
Speaker 1: to put it, okay, when well, I hope tell I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not very I mean, you know, I'm more optimistic
Speaker 1: about what some pop culture can throw up than I
Speaker 1: am about what will happen on the political scene. But
Speaker 1: who knows. I mean, nobody can predict. I mean, and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, even pop culture, we have more homogenization,
Speaker 1: like a higher percentage of Bocasta goes to Marvel movies
Speaker 1: and everything else combined. But on the other hand, we
Speaker 1: have in all kinds of areas, especially when they're lower
Speaker 1: can be lower bridget we have much more wide varieties
Speaker 1: of expression. I was talking the other day to a
Speaker 1: museum director and they're doing a museum show on apro futurism,
Speaker 1: and they said, basically they could get the money for
Speaker 1: it because the Black Panther, the hook is will conduct.
Speaker 1: But of course apro futurism has existed for a long
Speaker 1: time before Black Panther, which was I mean, it was
Speaker 1: obviously by far the best Marvel movie. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's lots of other stuff going on, but sometimes you
Speaker 1: don't get the publicity, so I don't know. I mean
Speaker 1: again and see we seem it seems particularly schizophrenic between
Speaker 1: the kind of horrible things going on politically and the
Speaker 1: kind of cultural renaissance which seems to be going on
Speaker 1: despite that politics. It's so interesting to talk about apro futurism. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a personal aside, but um, that was such
Speaker 1: a Those were such my foundational through roads into so
Speaker 1: many auto conversations about black identity, tech, digital, digital thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, science fiction. When I was a kid, my
Speaker 1: dad had this one specific Earth Wind and Fire album
Speaker 1: and it had this really cool like cover at Hamburg.
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I would stare at it for
Speaker 1: hours and run my fingers over and trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what does it mean? What does it mean? Come
Speaker 1: to find out to get older, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: doesn't really mean anything. It's just like looks really cool.
Speaker 1: I was thinking there was some sort of like secret
Speaker 1: mystical you know, And I think like like artists who
Speaker 1: play with blackness and identity and and science fiction in
Speaker 1: the future, you know. I think for a long time
Speaker 1: it probably felt like when you when you as a
Speaker 1: as a black person, or I think any person of
Speaker 1: color or marginalized community. Sometimes it can be fraught to
Speaker 1: imagine our futures. And I think creatives who can help
Speaker 1: us imagine in our wildest dreams what those futures look like,
Speaker 1: and that they include us. I think it's so important
Speaker 1: and powerful. There's a show. I live in Detroit and
Speaker 1: there's a show it an art gallery downtown of the
Speaker 1: apro futurist art and one of the items in the
Speaker 1: show is that it's not actually in the gallery, it's
Speaker 1: on a billboard outside. It says there are Black people
Speaker 1: in the future. Oh. That's the installation from artist Alicia Wormsley.
Speaker 1: She puts up billboards reminding everyone that there are black
Speaker 1: people in the future. And I just saw on Instagram
Speaker 1: this morning. I thought it was so wild, because, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, it shouldn't be a controversial
Speaker 1: statement to remind folks that, yes, there are black people
Speaker 1: in the future. But then also how arresting is that,
Speaker 1: How powerful is that we exist in the future. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a bold reminder there are black people in
Speaker 1: the future. And Missy Elliott helped me contextualize myself in
Speaker 1: that future and embrace all the wonderful weirdness that it
Speaker 1: could entail. We need to lift up our black visionaries
Speaker 1: and innovators, the weirdos who do things their own way
Speaker 1: and inspire others that they too can march to or
Speaker 1: even produce their own beats. So Missy Elliott is the
Speaker 1: visionary who inspired me, But we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: What icon than visionaries are inspiring you. Let us know
Speaker 1: at Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: transcripts for today's episode at tegnody dot com. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for ways to support the show, check out our
Speaker 1: mark store at tangodi dot com flash Store. There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss Creative, edited
Speaker 1: by Joey Pat Jonathan Strictland as our executive producer. Terry
Speaker 1: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Motto is
Speaker 1: our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you
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