WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Tommy Oliver & Mike Africa Jr. 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:08.920 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Mary. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.920 It looks like you won the Man Alive on Mars 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:18.880 or war Man on Mars Alive. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:24.560 Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to West Love Supreme. You know, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.560 I'm trying to refrain. 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.440 I think I start every episode where I say, like 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.720 a special episode of Quest Love Supreme, like it's a 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.479 you know, a special, a special family. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:38.760 Times or whatever. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.279 This is definitely yes, this is probably a very this 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.440 is a very personal episode, at least for me. It's 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.760 a Philadelphia, and I think that you might claim you 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:50.479 might want to claim your city for once, like. 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.760 Oh yeah, all day, especially when it. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.000 Comes this episode. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.360 Okay, good, especially when it comes to this topic. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.360 Yes, yes, we are all Philadelphians now. Yeah. I know 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.360 that Quest Love Supreme is normally our. 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:10.200 Source for pop culture, Easter eggs and education edumentcation, But 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.240 because of the times that we're living in right now, 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:18.360 I felt it was only apropos for us to focus 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:24.640 on a very powerful documentary that as a Philadelphia this 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.080 is very near and dear to my heart. I'm speaking 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.520 of the powerful story that is forty years a prisoner 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:36.240 coming to well. Now at HBO, you can get on 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:41.120 HBO Max as well. This is a tale, of course, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:46.600 the black lives of injustice, of police, brutality, of murder, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.840 of corrupt politicians, of an imbalanced system. A lot of 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:55.760 questions and hardly answers that can't come fast enough. But 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:01.559 you know this is also this isn't just uh torture porn. 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.720 This is this is a story of determination uh and 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.040 a story of hope, really a bond of a black 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:15.480 family whose spirit cannot be broken no matter what opposition 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.000 comes its way. And we have two key members of 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:25.120 this very powerful documentary director of forty Years a Prisoner 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.959 uh in Philadelphia, Tommy Oliver, and I guess I could 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.480 say the star and the hero of forty Years a Prisoner, 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.239 the very very patient Mike Africa Junior. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.040 Welcome, gentlemen, to Questlove Supreme. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.120 Yeah, I feel like Don Cornelis want to say that. 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:50.040 You actually I've always wanted to be on soul train, 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:50.760 so I'll take it. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.360 I'm actually, I'm actually proud that, you know what, I'm 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.920 becoming more aware. I've been listening to a lot of 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.880 old episodes and I Obama itis a lot of uh ah, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:09.480 So I'm trying to do less ah and gaps as 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.920 I think in free time. So there's a lot to 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:18.440 uncover here, gentlemen. I'll start by saying, how gut wrenching 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:24.679 and amazing this documentary is. When mister Oliver first came 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.960 into my radar about this project, the first thing he 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.160 asked me was what do I know about Move? And 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.680 instantly I thought, hell, yeah, I'm gonna be a talking 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.600 head because I lived on O Sage Avenue and at 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.760 that I considered like May thirteenth to be like one 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.360 of the worst days of my high school life. Not 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.160 even to make light of that day, but like you know, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.720 like just imagine like that morning my ninth grade girlfriend 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.240 just dumped me in the most like embarrassing way in 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.280 front of the class, and then like my sister got 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.000 to go to the Cosby Show taping without me, and 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.160 literally like I came on in puffing, and then exactly 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.680 at like four pm like this, I lived on fifty 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.000 second of No Sage, so I'm like eight blocks away 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:15.560 from where this particular move incident happened, and you just 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:20.400 heard this explosion and Tommy just stopped me instantly, he 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.000 was like, this isn't about May thirteenth, nineteen eighty five, 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.360 So then I thought about Paleton Avenue and then I said, oh, 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:32.040 I remember commissioner at the time, Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:37.640 lining up a bunch of African American males outside their 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:38.440 home butt naked. 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:40.919 And then he stopped me again. He's like, no, that 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:42.440 was the Black Panthers. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:44.280 And I was like, wait a minute, Okay, I know 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.760 about Mumia, I know about May of eighty five, and 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:49.240 I thought I knew about move. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.320 I'm like, how many how many. 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:58.120 Stories of the Philadelphia police system versus black people are there? 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.120 And he just looked like, oh, you need to sit 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.080 down and watch this, and he showed me this is 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:05.240 so much to unpacked. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.840 I'll throw it out to you time before I get 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:08.000 to you. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.320 Brother, Mike, why did you even think that this was 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:13.880 the story unpacking? 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.360 And I don't know, like, are we going to kind 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:17.360 of give the ending away? 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:22.000 Because for me that I did, Yeah, we did ending 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:23.680 a way at this point. I mean because I don't 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.280 know when this will come out, but it'll come out 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.400 and then yeah, it's all good. We can we can 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:29.280 definitely talk about it. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.640 Okay. Well, the thing is is that going into it, 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.680 you you know you're doing this in real time and 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.520 you don't know what the outcome. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.120 Is, no idea whatsoever. 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.520 And you wouldn't have told me in a bajillion years 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:50.760 that what we concluded with was going to happen. So 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.680 even then as I'm watching this, so watching when arms folded, 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.919 like okay, more more torture, porn? 0:05:58.279 --> 0:05:59.440 You know, wait, let me let. 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.560 Me just ask this job because he asked you what 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.400 you know about Move? But Tommy, not to judge, but 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.080 you obviously a little younger. First of all, what did 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.560 you know about Move? And why? I'm just learning that 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.080 there are multiple move attempted massacre stories, but why this 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:16.600 particular story. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:17.839 More than the two that we know? 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:18.680 Did? 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.279 You just said no, I didn't even know because I 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.080 was waiting for the bomb to drop. And I was like, wait, 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:24.520 so can you explain that, Tommy. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.960 So I grew up and I sort of heard about Move, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.440 but not really. So I'm thirty six and I was 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.920 one when eighty five happened, and wasn't alive when this 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:43.280 event happened. But nobody really talked about moving any with 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:44.000 any clarity. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:45.719 It was phi least tricky that way. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.400 Philly's really tricky that way, and so it's like move 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:50.800 and there was this thing and there was a bomb 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.120 and there was just you know those just what it was. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.520 And so I never really understood it. But I'm a 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.240 complete research junkie, and at some point I just went 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.280 down a rabbit hole and so I read every book 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.359 that I could final Move, I've read every article I 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.840 could find. I went down to the Urban Archive at 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.560 Temple where there are seventy two boxes of content, and 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.000 I threw so much of that stuff. But I realized 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.560 that there was still more stuff that was missing. And 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.120 so I had my buddy who used worked for the mayor, 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.600 Maxwell Brown. He introduced me. So Max is the homie, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.080 is like, look, anybody anything that I meet and feel 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.000 anybody I need to get to him? Like Maxwell was 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.280 like can you? And so I'm like can you? Is 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:30.840 like yeah, of course I got you. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:31.320 You're my guy. 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.480 Done. And so he made an intro to to Mona, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.600 to Romona, Africa, and then she brought along Mike and 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.720 I was like, who is this dude? It was like 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.160 I was there to meet Ramona and Mike and I 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.160 we just hit it off like very very quickly, and 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.400 I learned so much at that point that I didn't know. 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.920 So at that point two of the MOVE members who 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.720 were in prison because of seventy eight had passed away 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.200 in prison. Seven of them were still in prison. Two 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.400 of those seven were his parents. And the fact that 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.760 he was born in prison I had no idea about, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.160 and the fact that he was fighting to get them 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.400 out and that's all he was doing with his life. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.640 That he was just a kid who wanted his parents 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.760 home and despite all of what he went through, there 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:22.520 wasn't a shred of bitterness about him was just incredible. 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:25.360 And then to talk some top of that, the fact 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.760 that to really understand that what MOVE was fighting against 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.920 and seventy eight police brutality, wrong co incarceration, systemic racism, 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.520 and piece of power, same shit we were fighting against 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.120 at that point three years ago or so, and same 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.240 shit we're fining against right now. And so for me, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.720 it was the idea of trying to just do whatever 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:49.560 I could to be around him and sort of to 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.440 just even just as a friend, because he was just 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.760 doing something. He's wanted his parents home, and as somebody 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.360 who grew up with a difficult childhood. My dad wasn't 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.080 around all those things. I just wanted to see this 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.800 guy get his parents home. And then, from a storytelling perspective, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.880 people knew about eighty five kind of nobody knew about 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.000 seventy eight, but it was also specifically related to what 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.319 his journey was into what was going on with his parents, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.680 And so that put me and the rest of my team, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:20.920 which is really three of us. It was me, my 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.800 EP Slash Racibo producer Keith g Nutt, my co editor 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.720 Joe Kiyo, the three of us just research the hell 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.520 out of it because there was no definitive account of 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.640 what happened in seventy eight, and so we just sort 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:33.240 of went from there. 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.480 I already know that this is going to be the 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:42.280 Snoop Dogg Doggie style episode of Quest Left Supreme where 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.959 the star of the episode doesn't even come in until 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:47.680 the second song. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.000 So that's it. I'm like, we didn't even talk to 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:51.600 Mike yet. 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.360 I don't even know Mike we're talking. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.959 Just start three songs later, like everyone gets on Snoops 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.160 record before Snoop does, and we're like eleven minutes into 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.440 this episode. Just hit me that we left the train 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.560 station without even talking to Mike. Mike, first of all, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.240 man I'm extremely honored that you're doing us this solid 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.839 by giving us this interview. I guess for the non 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:27.000 Philadelphians and the non connected people to your story, I 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:32.240 would like to definitively ask you. Could you please tell 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.640 us what does move mean? 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:37.439 And what do they stand for? 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.680 Oh? That's an easy one. Yeah, I mean, I know 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:43.600 a lot of people don't really know what move means. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.120 They a lot of people think of it as an acronym. 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:47.920 I thought it was an acronym. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.800 Right Listen. Growing up, I heard a lot of acronyms 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.360 that people made up about us. Man, listen, I'm gonna 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.640 were interesting ones. The best one that I've ever heard. 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:58.480 It makes me laugh every time I hear it. Now 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.400 they say it stands from monkey's own vines everywhere. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.280 What you gotta be kidding? 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:08.680 But what? 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:08.920 Wait? 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.120 Can I ask you a question though? And this is 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:12.600 going to pay me to ask because I know what 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.520 the answer might be. Did you first hear that from 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:16.320 a black person? 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:17.440 Yes? 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.000 Yo, we got to talk. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.920 I want you to answer that question first, and then 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.720 I need to explain how move was explained to me, 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.320 and then we can really uncover the dirty secret of 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.199 Black America's conservatism, and. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.160 Then I'm going to explain so much of how much 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:46.200 the media drove all of that in the seventies. You're misinformation. 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.400 There was so much misrepresentation about who they were and 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.360 there was no place else to go but to watch 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.800 the news, and so we can dig into all that. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.040 Okay, So for starters, Mike, could you please explain to 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:03.520 us what is MOVE and what does it stand for? 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:10.320 The Move organization's name Move It came from the founder 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:15.800 John Africa because he said that all life moves, and 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.400 in order to be in harmony with life with nature, 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.240 you have to move too. And we have a system 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.920 in place that is stagnant and it causes people to 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.080 stop or be stopped, and we are anti that establishment. 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.320 So we are completely opposite. So that's why we are called. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:40.120 Move and our mission is to encourage people to protect life, people, animals, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.400 and the environment. That's it. The water moves, the trees move, 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:49.200 the air flows and moves, the people move, the animals move, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.800 All life moves, and that's how we got the name 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:54.000 pre epa. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:55.040 Yo. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.000 You know what saddens me about this whole thing is 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:03.280 because okay, you know for us that for a lot 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:03.760 of us. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:05.400 That are on social media, and. 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.560 You know, you always see like you know, twenty twenty 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.480 and a twenty twenty Bengo card, and surprises are abounding, 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.920 and a lot of things are unfurling that you know, 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.640 manages to shock you, even though I think nothing is 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.040 shocking in twenty twenty. But the one revelation that came 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.800 to be that really threw people for a gut punch 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:38.240 was how conservative a sect of black America is, especially 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:44.520 in the light of the election that has recently passed. 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:51.840 And I say that because in nineteen eighty five, especially 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:57.640 let's say, like five or six days before the Osage 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:58.440 Avenue bombing. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:00.880 What what I'm saying is that. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.400 I grew up with uncles in the police force of 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:12.720 the Rizzo era under under Frank Rizzo. For the for 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.000 those that don't know, I was about to say, Frank 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.840 Rizzo is not the character from the Jerky Boys. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:21.920 Frank Rizzo is. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.560 You know a lot of what's happening now in the 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.160 Trump administration to a lot of Philadelphians, Uh, that is 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.400 nothing shocking or knew. Frank Rizzo was probably one of 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:40.520 the most vile UH politicians in the history of America. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.640 The dude once said that I'm going to make a 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.280 till of the hunt look like a faggot. That is 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.560 a direct quote from the person who was the mayor 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.600 of at the time the fourth biggest city in the country. Yeah, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.880 he that is a direct. 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:05.440 Also one of the issues that's even trying to pull down. 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:08.400 And he was somebody who he started as b cop, 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.720 made his way all the way up to police commissioner, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.800 two term city mayor, and he basically operated under the 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.240 principle of you're gonna have safe streets or you can 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.440 have civil liberties. Pick one. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:19.960 Yeah. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.240 He again a lot of the code talk that or 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.560 the you know, the the hidden he didn't even hide 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.840 the code because I think at one point I remember 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.120 my father being upset at that he I think he 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:39.960 directly told white people to just rail against black people 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.720 because they were taking your jobs. Like whatever the I 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:45.600 think it was the garbage union or something like that, 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.160 but like he just directly told white people, fight for yourself. So, 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.200 I mean, everything that we're experiencing now with Trump, we 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.200 had to deal with that. He's been mayor since I 0:15:58.320 --> 0:15:58.760 was born. 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.200 I believe his time ran down seventy eight or seventy 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.680 nine I'm not certain, but his. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.240 Mum was long though, right, because he was police commissioner first, Yeah, 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.480 he was. And then his family is in the government 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.920 as well, right, Like he had a brother. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.080 Brother who was in the fire department, who ran the 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:18.880 fire department, and they were all over. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.280 His father was a fire department was in a fire 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:21.880 department too. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.120 Yeah, so they were involved for a long time, and 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:31.520 he ran the city like a mob boss exactly. You know. 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.880 The thing of like like the racism in him, it 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:36.400 wasn't even he didn't try to hide it. 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.480 I mean, it was how he felt. 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.360 And you know, one of the examples I give about 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.400 Frank Frizzo and his ways, like in the city of Philadelphia, 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.080 where there's over two thousand statues or monuments in the 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.400 city that is mostly black, there's only three that are 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.440 of black people. One is Martin Luther King and is 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:01.080 only eighteen inches high. One is Octavius That just we 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.159 just got that statue outside of city Hall just a 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:08.680 few years ago. There is no statue of Bernard Hopkins, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.560 who was a heavyweight champion at the age of fifty, however, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.720 but there's a statue of a fictional character named Rocky 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:23.439 Velo right, so, and that's because of Rizzo Italian. He 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.600 was pushing the whole Italian thing, and he wanted people 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.160 in the city to be with this Italian thing, so 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.320 he pushed it, and he, like you said, he said 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.040 he wanted to urge white people to fight black people 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.000 for better jobs and all that kind of stuff. So 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.640 his and his racism spilled over on everyone, and Move 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.439 got it really hard. A lot of it was because 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.199 of Paltain Village and the gentrification of that community, a 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.560 lot like what you're seeing now in a temple and 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.800 pen and a lot of it had to do with 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.439 the fact that Move was very much before our time. 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.760 We didn't see dread locks in nineteen seventy whatever. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.199 And the first time I ever saw locks outside of 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.639 my family was Whoopy gold Bird and that was in 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:15.240 the eighties. 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.200 And then they were demonized before they were celebrated, exactly. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.280 And so the raw food thing, we were long before 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.200 the raw food restaurants that are popping up all over 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.040 the country. 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.919 Vegan in the wrong place. You were trying to be 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:31.800 vegan in the city. 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.520 The exercise, i mean, Move women having the babies at home. 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.199 We were so before our time, and the you know 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.960 it was it was we were demonized because of it, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:50.360 and people you know, discriminated against, and that was in large. 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:54.800 Part what led to them accepting what happened to us. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:55.280 You know. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.760 The thing that perplexed me was that a lot of 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.600 my I a lot of my thoughts on what move 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:09.399 was came directly from black people, older black people. And 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.240 that's when I realized that at the time, I think 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.959 when the roots first started, and this is when we 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.760 were like busking on the streets of like West Philadelphia, 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.359 like we do something at Clark Park or whatever. We 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.320 did this thing at Clark Park. Once I think of 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.159 like ninety one and I met Ramona. There was on 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.800 Baltimore Avenue, like a farmer's market or something like that, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:34.360 and she was. 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.560 There and it was kind of like my us weekly. 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.760 Oh she's just like us, Like, oh, she talks proper 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.560 English and she's eating salad. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.560 I don't see her eating more. I'm telling you. I 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.199 was told the worship about that. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:52.840 This is a dress, and this is addressed in a 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.160 documentary day that. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.000 Y'all were heavens that it was like a cult that 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.000 you know, like raw foods, And now I get what 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.320 the raw means as in a vegan lifestyle. But when 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.200 it's nineteen eighty five and people don't understand the contextualization 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.160 of a cleaner, healthy living. I mean, this is stuff 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.040 like Eric Abadu taught me in ninety seven. But you 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.159 guys were just twenty years, not twenty thirty years ahead 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.560 of the game. And you know, once I talked to her, 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.080 I walked away. I was like, wait a minute, that's 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.800 not what my uncles or my grandmam or like anyone 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:37.280 that was older said, right, And it just that was 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.080 the that was the moment where I realized, how you know, 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.320 if you kind of go against I hate to say 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:48.920 it like this, this conservative Christian. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:51.520 And black people. 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.000 Go yeah, like it's it's against God. And what God 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:55.919 do they worship? They don't worship my God and dah. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:01.120 Da da And. 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.560 That's not even and that's not even necessarily accurate. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:04.399 The original A lot of people don't notice, but the 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.959 original name for the move organization was the Christian Movement, 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:14.160 the American Christian Movement for Life. That was their original name. 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:20.320 The people black people were ashamed of us. 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:23.760 They thought that even though. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.600 The message was cool, when we talked to them one 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:31.040 on one, because we didn't come in a suit like 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.560 Martin Luther King and delivered that message. They didn't want 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.560 to accept it because we didn't come in a suit 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.639 like Malcolm, you know, and these were the heroes that 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:46.320 had just been honored and celebrated, so they thought of 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.840 it as this is how you're supposed to look. If 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.800 you're going to be a revolutionary or if you're going 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:53.919 to be radical, then you need to look like the 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.960 Black Panthers. So move come along with different than all 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.760 of those groups, different than anyone has ever even seen before. 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.960 And it just made people question it from the beginning. 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:13.840 And it didn't help that the news media was saying 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.840 things like we eat out of garbage cans, and we 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.320 don't bathe, and we don't the children don't, the children 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:24.600 are not schooled, and just they made it worse by 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:30.600 just you know, inflaming people's minds and their passions with 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.119 these lies. You know, they demonized us, and that just 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.200 gave them like justification. 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:42.800 Okay, So at the time, I mean, how aware were 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:48.920 you of the osh Avenue incident and what effect did 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.440 that have on your life? Like were you going by Mike? 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.440 You were born as Mike Africa right. 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.480 So you know, if you've researched move history, there's a 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.240 lot of confrontations and incidents with the police that you'll find, 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.120 but there's a lot that you will never find. One 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.800 in particular that you it's a footnote within the history 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.760 on paper, but it left a major impression on the 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:20.080 children in the seventies. In the very early eighties, John 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:25.040 Africa sent the children to our sister chapter in Richmond, 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:27.679 Virginia was called the Seat of Wisdom. And I was 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.200 one of the kids. After I was born in a jail, 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:33.159 my grandmother took me to the Seat of Wisdom in 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.439 Virginia too. Bertie was there. All of the kids that 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:38.920 were in the house made thirteenth. They were all there. 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:42.040 We were all together, and a bunch of other kids 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.560 were there too. It was about fifteen of us. You know. 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:49.080 It was like you never really got any peace. You 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:53.159 could never really feel safe or secure. Every time you 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:58.000 started to like feel that things were going to change, 0:23:58.240 --> 0:23:59.399 they just they didn't. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:05.200 I mean, I can remember times where neighbors black and 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.520 white would walk up to us and just like pull 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.320 as much mucus out of their chest and out of 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:16.760 their throat and just spit on us. I remember, like 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:20.640 like the police come by. They're not even doing anything. 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:25.119 They're not coming by to raid our house or anything. 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.119 They just walk in the beat and as they're walking 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:30.199 they see, you know, one of us, and they just 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:32.960 pick us up by our hair and throw us across 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:36.560 the street. That that's the kind of stuff that happened 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.840 throughout my childhood as children. Yeah, I mean, you know, three, 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.280 four or five, seven, you know, and so like we 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.720 always like stuck stuck together and like try to fight 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:50.560 for each other. But you know, we were all kids. 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:52.840 The oldest one was only eight or nine years old 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:55.840 of the fifteen of us. And so like when we 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:59.000 were in Virginia, there was this thing that happened where 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:03.679 they pull the police raided our house and uh they 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:06.920 said that there was some housing co violations. The children 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:10.080 were said to be abused in all of this nonsense. 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:13.080 So they put us in an orphanage. We were in 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:16.960 the orphanage for eleven days. And while we were in 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:21.800 the orphanage, we were like neglected, I mean totally abused. 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:24.520 Like I mean, look I was I was I was 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:29.640 almost three years old, and they didn't, you know, the caretakers, 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:33.679 the nuns that was running the place. They didn't change 0:25:33.680 --> 0:25:37.240 my diaper for eleven days. I had a diaper rash 0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:41.240 that was near my knees and up to my neighbor. 0:25:42.000 --> 0:25:45.520 And when my when my family and I wasn't the 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:49.240 only one, and I was not the youngest, and you know, 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.239 I mean they they like my cousin. My cousin had 0:25:53.280 --> 0:25:57.080 locks down to his almost down to his shoulders, and 0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:00.359 like the nuns like were trying to comb his hair, 0:26:01.320 --> 0:26:03.840 and they combed his hair to the point where like 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:07.280 his head was bleeding. He had went by the time 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:09.520 they finished, by the time we were you know, by 0:26:09.880 --> 0:26:12.680 the time our family got us back, he had half 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:15.040 of an afro and the other half of his head 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:18.159 was still locks, you know, and he has sores all 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:20.879 over his head. You know, they were they you know, 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:23.479 when we didn't cooperate, they try to throw us. 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:26.520 They actually threw some of the kids down basement steps. 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:26.760 You know. 0:26:27.080 --> 0:26:30.000 We would hide behind hot water tanks to try to 0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:33.240 try to get away from them. And we went through 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.320 all of that for that eleven days. Our family rescues 0:26:36.440 --> 0:26:41.239 us and then they bring us back to Philadelphia, and 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:46.520 you're thinking, wow, this okay, finally we're home. The worst. 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:49.840 It can't get any worse than this. Right, it's over. 0:26:50.080 --> 0:26:53.480 The worst has to be over because we just survived 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:57.119 something that we shouldn't have and then, you know, it 0:26:57.320 --> 0:27:01.239 just it never it didn't get better for them. You know, 0:27:01.280 --> 0:27:06.080 we were I remember hearing about the confrontation is gearing up. 0:27:07.200 --> 0:27:10.920 The cops were always around our houses, flying helicopters. I mean, 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:13.600 I was terrified at the sound of any siren. It 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:16.840 could have been an ambulance going to rescue somebody, but 0:27:16.960 --> 0:27:21.439 the sound was so terrifying, and when I would hear it, 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:24.280 I would run home. It doesn't matter where I was 0:27:24.359 --> 0:27:26.080 or what I was doing. I would run home as 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:30.800 fast as I could. And then one day I went 0:27:30.840 --> 0:27:34.800 outside the house and I turned I walked down the steps. 0:27:35.520 --> 0:27:38.600 I'm about four miles away from Osage Avenue on Reno 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:42.439 Street in West Philly, and one of my friends he 0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:44.119 looked at me and said, they dropped the bomb or 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:47.879 move And my first reaction was, no, they didn't. And 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:51.200 he pointed up to the sky. And when I turned 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:56.280 around and looked up, the entire sky was black and 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:00.200 I didn't know what that meant. And I was six 0:28:00.280 --> 0:28:04.000 years old. I ran in the house, and I asked 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:07.280 my grandmother, I said, and before I couldn't even ask 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:12.480 her anything. Her and my aunts were huddled around the 0:28:12.480 --> 0:28:18.159 television with tears just pouring out of their faces. And 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:19.800 you know, and I said, that looked like our house. 0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:23.600 And I looked at me and said it is. And 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:26.520 I wonder. I didn't know if anyone had died. I 0:28:26.560 --> 0:28:29.520 didn't know who was in the house. I just knew 0:28:29.520 --> 0:28:32.320 that our house was on fire, and it didn't look 0:28:32.400 --> 0:28:34.520 like it was being put out. 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:38.040 It took me a lot of years to find out 0:28:38.040 --> 0:28:39.280 who was actually in the house. 0:28:39.960 --> 0:28:42.080 I had no idea that all the children that I 0:28:42.120 --> 0:28:46.880 was in Richmond with was in the house. I would 0:28:46.880 --> 0:28:50.320 ask my grandmother where they are? And you know, how 0:28:50.360 --> 0:28:52.200 do you tell a six year old your family was 0:28:52.280 --> 0:28:56.760 just killed? Right, So with having the belief of life 0:28:57.680 --> 0:29:00.800 and believing that all life is one and connected and 0:29:00.840 --> 0:29:02.800 we all need each other, and we all depend on 0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:09.280 the same sources for life, and we don't believe in death, right, 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:13.240 We believe that life is continuous. When an apple falls 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:16.360 from a tree, it goes into the ground and it 0:29:16.400 --> 0:29:19.720 provides with more apples, more seeds, you know, So we 0:29:19.880 --> 0:29:22.680 just that's how we think about everything in life. So 0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:26.360 when I would ask my grandmother where the people were, 0:29:26.400 --> 0:29:29.960 where the kids, where's Tomaso at? She would say, look 0:29:29.960 --> 0:29:33.000 out the window, and you know, I might see a cardinal. 0:29:33.040 --> 0:29:34.680 At the time I asked her that question, I saw 0:29:34.720 --> 0:29:37.120 a cardinal land on the branch and she pointed to 0:29:37.160 --> 0:29:39.400 the cardinal and said, there he is. If you want 0:29:39.440 --> 0:29:40.960 to see your family, you want to see your brothers 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.080 and sisters, look out the window and see the life 0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:46.200 you'll see them. And that's the way. 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:49.720 It was for about eight years. 0:29:50.800 --> 0:29:55.800 And when I began to understand who was in the house, 0:29:57.280 --> 0:30:00.800 that came when Ramona came home and eineteen ninety two, 0:30:02.280 --> 0:30:04.200 I asked my mom, who was at the prison with 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:06.360 her before she came home. I said, I said, Mom, 0:30:06.440 --> 0:30:08.000 can you can you have Ramona come and get me 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:11.200 when she come home? And Ramona the day she came home, 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:14.680 she came and got me and we were Ramona went 0:30:14.720 --> 0:30:17.120 straight to like a speaking thing where she was on 0:30:17.160 --> 0:30:20.520 the radio or something, and I was with her and 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:24.800 she was telling the story to the audience. And as 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:29.120 she's telling the story, I'm learning what happened to my family. 0:30:29.320 --> 0:30:32.360 As she as the audience is learning it too, so 0:30:32.440 --> 0:30:35.040 there was a lot of catching up that I had 0:30:35.040 --> 0:30:37.920 to do. I didn't know who. I knew my parents 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:39.440 were in prison, but I didn't know what they were 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:42.080 in prison for. I didn't know that they had a 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:45.920 hundred year sentence. I didn't know that they were in 0:30:46.000 --> 0:30:50.520 prison for killing a cop. I didn't know what was 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:54.200 going on really, because again, how do you explain to 0:30:54.280 --> 0:30:58.760 a child that his family is in prison and he 0:30:58.840 --> 0:31:01.720 won't see them until he outside on the street. 0:31:01.720 --> 0:31:04.560 He won't see them until he's at least thirty years old. 0:31:05.600 --> 0:31:10.480 So you know a lot. I was just learning as 0:31:10.560 --> 0:31:13.480 audiences were learning. I traveled with Ramona throughout the country. 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:17.040 We went on I mean, she went on tours, speaking 0:31:17.080 --> 0:31:19.800 tours all around the country, and I'm just soaking up 0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:22.240 as much information as I can from her and from Pam, 0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:24.520 and I listened to Mumia speak a lot. 0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:26.160 Mumia talked a lot about move. 0:31:26.560 --> 0:31:30.280 I listened to his recordings and his commentaries, read some 0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:34.080 of his writings. That's how I learned about May thirteenth 0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:37.680 and the and the depth that I that I was 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:40.520 able to understand it in and about what happened on 0:31:40.560 --> 0:31:42.320 August Epe that sent our people to prison. 0:31:47.200 --> 0:31:49.320 I got to ask, is this from the after watching 0:31:49.400 --> 0:31:52.640 the documentary after you just listen to your speech just now, 0:31:53.960 --> 0:31:56.480 and I think that ameor mentioned this in your in 0:31:56.520 --> 0:31:57.000 the intro. 0:31:57.920 --> 0:32:00.400 Your patience is is. 0:32:02.000 --> 0:32:05.600 And you're just wherewithal to just push through is amazing, 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:09.720 and knowing it is astounding, and knowing just a piece 0:32:09.800 --> 0:32:11.600 of the story makes you feel that way, but then 0:32:11.720 --> 0:32:14.160 knowing the totality, like not just about your parents, but 0:32:14.280 --> 0:32:15.840 just life outside of that and the. 0:32:15.800 --> 0:32:16.560 Things that you've seen. 0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:19.400 So I got to ask you as a man, like, 0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:20.760 as a black man, like. 0:32:21.160 --> 0:32:22.960 How do you maintain this? 0:32:23.240 --> 0:32:23.360 Like? 0:32:23.640 --> 0:32:27.400 And I'm just pointing to mind because at such a 0:32:27.440 --> 0:32:30.800 beautiful level that it seems to exude from you. 0:32:30.800 --> 0:32:34.360 You know, I was asking this question earlier today. Oh damn, 0:32:36.040 --> 0:32:37.520 people ask me this. 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:40.040 People ask me this, I mean, because. 0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:40.880 It's kind of like advice too. 0:32:40.920 --> 0:32:42.040 We want to know, we want to know if you 0:32:42.040 --> 0:32:43.800 can do it, we can go through anything we got 0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:45.120 going on. 0:32:45.120 --> 0:32:47.600 One of the I was doing an interview with a 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:51.920 reporter from the Guardian newspaper. He asked me what was 0:32:52.000 --> 0:32:55.320 your what was the thing that you disliked about the 0:32:55.360 --> 0:32:58.960 film the most? And I said, I didn't dislike the 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:01.600 film at all, I said, But there was a comment 0:33:01.960 --> 0:33:06.600 that was made by one of the officers, Bob Hurst. 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.360 Bob Hurst made a comment that said he said something 0:33:11.480 --> 0:33:14.680 like they took move to jail, but they should have 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:21.680 took him to the morgue. And that was probably more 0:33:21.720 --> 0:33:27.080 disappointing than it was angering, because how you know, if 0:33:27.080 --> 0:33:30.960 we're going to move forward and grow as a people, right, 0:33:31.640 --> 0:33:35.600 how do you still harbor the same hate in your 0:33:35.640 --> 0:33:40.560 heart that led to one of his fellow officers being killed. 0:33:41.880 --> 0:33:45.440 I mean, what happened on August eighth, nineteen seventy eight, 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:49.080 when a cop where a cop was killed. That didn't 0:33:49.120 --> 0:33:52.960 happen because people were loving each other. That happened because 0:33:53.000 --> 0:33:56.640 people were fighting each other because of a system that 0:33:57.000 --> 0:33:59.640 one was trying to protect and the other side was 0:33:59.680 --> 0:34:02.480 trying to get rid of. Because of the danger. It 0:34:02.600 --> 0:34:06.480 calls for people, the animals, the environment, and everyone, including 0:34:06.520 --> 0:34:11.400 the cops. So you know, it's just I have enough 0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:15.200 understanding of the mission, and I'm clear enough to understand 0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:19.440 that we're not going to get in anywhere carrying hate 0:34:19.440 --> 0:34:20.920 in our hearts. We're not. 0:34:21.120 --> 0:34:22.240 It doesn't get us anywhere. 0:34:22.239 --> 0:34:24.960 You know where hate gets you, It gets warse, it 0:34:25.000 --> 0:34:28.279 gets violence, the hatred that you must have in you 0:34:29.080 --> 0:34:33.520 to shoot a brother down in his back in front 0:34:33.560 --> 0:34:37.120 of his mother, kneeling on his neck while he's calling 0:34:37.160 --> 0:34:40.120 for his mother, crying for his mother, pleading for his mother. 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:44.080 That is what hate breathes. And I'm trying to get 0:34:44.120 --> 0:34:46.400 as far away from it from that type of activity 0:34:46.400 --> 0:34:50.120 as possible because it doesn't get us anywhere, it doesn't 0:34:50.120 --> 0:34:53.719 help us in any kind of way. And it is 0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:57.600 exactly what like like Trump Trump was saying that Trump 0:34:57.680 --> 0:35:00.480 made a statement about Frank Rizzo himself. He said, we 0:35:00.520 --> 0:35:04.839 need more mayors like him, you know, and we see 0:35:04.880 --> 0:35:07.719 the type of person he is and the type of 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:12.920 the type of evil that is evoked by his mentality. 0:35:12.960 --> 0:35:16.799 You got people walking around shooting protesters because protesters are 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:20.080 trying to make a better way, because they're just trying 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:23.840 to say stop killing black people. And you got anti 0:35:24.000 --> 0:35:28.440 protesters protesting the protests because they want to continue to 0:35:28.520 --> 0:35:31.920 kill black people. So, you know, I do a lot. 0:35:32.520 --> 0:35:34.719 It ain't easy about That's why I'm asking you, like, 0:35:34.760 --> 0:35:37.680 do you meditate, like Guly, asking you, like. 0:35:38.280 --> 0:35:40.400 How the spirits? 0:35:40.760 --> 0:35:41.960 Yes, right. 0:35:43.440 --> 0:35:44.200 In the life you know. 0:35:44.400 --> 0:35:46.160 It means you. 0:35:46.160 --> 0:35:49.840 You know, I am. I had a lot of time 0:35:50.760 --> 0:35:53.720 to think. I just I've had a lot of time 0:35:53.880 --> 0:35:58.360 to process what happened. Tommy talked about he's a research junkie. 0:35:59.080 --> 0:36:02.080 I'm a research junk as well. I have files. I 0:36:02.120 --> 0:36:06.360 have boxes and crates and filing cabinets and storage bends. 0:36:06.560 --> 0:36:10.520 Tommy's been to my basement. He's seen the towers of 0:36:10.640 --> 0:36:13.120 storage bins. In fact, you can see it. You can 0:36:13.160 --> 0:36:17.440 see a portion of my archives in the film. I'm 0:36:17.480 --> 0:36:21.120 sitting in front of it. That is ten of the 0:36:21.160 --> 0:36:22.160 information that I have. 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:28.440 Okay, so there's a part of the film that our 0:36:28.800 --> 0:36:34.720 mayor from eighty five W. Wilson Good, very transparently says 0:36:34.840 --> 0:36:43.640 that it's it's most likely that friendly fire was the 0:36:43.680 --> 0:36:48.840 cause of the death of the office. I forget the 0:36:48.840 --> 0:36:58.480 offers his name, James Grant, James Rand. Okay, sorry, now 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:04.359 I do know that because of the bulldozing of the 0:37:04.400 --> 0:37:08.319 compound and whatnot, I assume that a might assume that 0:37:09.160 --> 0:37:15.359 the evidence that would have officially exonerated them was that 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:20.520 in the rubble and the pile of mess like, because 0:37:20.520 --> 0:37:24.080 it's so obvious that it was friendly fire, and I 0:37:24.160 --> 0:37:28.280 know that you know forensics and you know the whatever 0:37:28.360 --> 0:37:31.240 the grass you know, magic bullet JFK theory thing couldn't 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:34.719 be been proved proven because of the of the watch 0:37:34.840 --> 0:37:39.560 job of the Philly Police Department. But how I mean, 0:37:39.640 --> 0:37:45.920 how close were they to kind of reaching that conclusion? 0:37:46.000 --> 0:37:49.120 Like it was there was that ever introduced in court? 0:37:49.239 --> 0:37:50.520 That hey, it was. 0:37:51.200 --> 0:37:53.560 It was introduced in court and it was a mess. 0:37:53.600 --> 0:37:57.879 There were so many things that happened, from evidence disappearing 0:37:58.040 --> 0:38:03.400 to the official footsiographer not taking any photos in the basement, 0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:05.600 to him saying that when he was in the basement 0:38:05.640 --> 0:38:10.480 he saw no guns in the basement, to the there 0:38:10.560 --> 0:38:14.759 was a time where they changed the trajectory of the 0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:18.000 bullet in court and so they said that oh it 0:38:18.040 --> 0:38:20.240 was going this way. Oh no, I'm sorry, it's actually 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:24.960 going this way in court on the official coroner's report 0:38:25.400 --> 0:38:27.520 they just said, oh no, no, sorry, it's supposed to be 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.400 the other way. And the judge allowed it. And so 0:38:30.960 --> 0:38:33.160 there were so many things. I mean, if you just 0:38:33.160 --> 0:38:36.720 stopped to think about it for a second, why would 0:38:36.960 --> 0:38:46.080 anyone destroy a crime scene hours after Why Olkham's razor? 0:38:46.320 --> 0:38:48.360 Like why like why would somebody do that? 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:52.040 Tommy, how did you not lose your shit during these interviews? 0:38:52.040 --> 0:38:55.960 Because I know that Mike is superhuman. However, I in 0:38:56.280 --> 0:39:00.319 these moments from the moment of the with Mike just 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:03.040 reminded us of what the officer said to Yeah, Bob 0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:06.680 Hurst to buy her, to Rendell, to Wilson, good, to 0:39:06.719 --> 0:39:08.640 all of them coming back and now being like, well, 0:39:08.680 --> 0:39:09.000 you know. 0:39:09.719 --> 0:39:11.400 Maybe they should be they shouldn't be in jail. 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:13.600 You know, everybody forty years later, like how do you 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:16.120 how did you keep your cool during the taping of 0:39:16.160 --> 0:39:19.000 these moments that were just like the fuck? 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:20.839 What you mean? 0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:24.040 Like forty years ain't shit. I'm sorry, That's how I felt. 0:39:25.040 --> 0:39:26.640 I mean, so much of it came down to, like, 0:39:26.880 --> 0:39:30.960 I set out to tell a story that was open, 0:39:31.320 --> 0:39:35.520 honest and unbiased, and there are no frank In bites 0:39:35.560 --> 0:39:38.440 in this. I'm not misrepresenting what people say, I'm not 0:39:38.480 --> 0:39:41.560 taking it out of context, and in many ways it 0:39:41.640 --> 0:39:44.400 was giving people enough rope to hang themselves because. 0:39:44.160 --> 0:39:45.880 I'm surprised you got some of those people. I was 0:39:45.920 --> 0:39:49.040 surprised you got Rendell and married They're good. 0:39:49.120 --> 0:39:51.080 Yeah, I was Jesus Christ. 0:39:50.840 --> 0:39:53.200 How hard or easy was that? 0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:56.960 That was the last that watching Wilson Good speak on 0:39:57.120 --> 0:40:00.319 move Yd, So wait, can I can I can I 0:40:00.360 --> 0:40:03.680 assume that you had to assure them that this was 0:40:03.719 --> 0:40:05.640 not about nineteen eighty five and that he was only 0:40:05.640 --> 0:40:07.680 going to speak on nineteen seventy seven, that. 0:40:07.600 --> 0:40:12.719 He's soool that actually came through Mike, and so speaking 0:40:12.800 --> 0:40:16.840 of the idea, and I know it really came down to, 0:40:17.440 --> 0:40:21.440 in his case, the ends justifying the means and the 0:40:21.480 --> 0:40:24.359 only thing and not to put words in your mouth, 0:40:24.400 --> 0:40:26.319 you can speak for yourself. But he went in his 0:40:26.360 --> 0:40:30.160 parents home, and as such it was about whatever it 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:33.960 took to do that, and the idea of sitting with 0:40:34.080 --> 0:40:37.160 the men who was significantly responsible for what happened to 0:40:37.160 --> 0:40:42.280 his family. Even the idea of that wasn't too much. 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:45.279 Oh you were there, you were there, Mike was there. 0:40:45.840 --> 0:40:48.080 Let me put it in context for people that might 0:40:48.120 --> 0:40:52.480 not get it. W Wilson Good was mayor of Philadelphia, 0:40:53.239 --> 0:40:56.600 our first black mayor in nineteen eighty five, kind of 0:40:56.600 --> 0:40:59.600 a source of pride. Not Obama esque, but it was 0:40:59.680 --> 0:41:02.600 kind of like okay, you know, okay. 0:41:02.320 --> 0:41:04.480 If you wasn't no Marion Barry. 0:41:04.800 --> 0:41:09.239 Well, you didn't smoke crack at least no, it was 0:41:10.560 --> 0:41:12.520 it was. It was a quasi I mean, if you 0:41:12.560 --> 0:41:14.799 were into that sort of thing. I mean, I've never 0:41:14.840 --> 0:41:18.359 got the quote Obama, whatever the feeling. I guess the 0:41:18.400 --> 0:41:22.200 idea of something supersedes the actual reality. So yes, I 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:25.120 would say that the idea of the first black mayor 0:41:25.120 --> 0:41:28.720 of Philadelphia was kind of a source of pride, especially 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:32.000 for a city that was under the under the thumb 0:41:32.920 --> 0:41:37.200 of you know, Rizzo for so long, and then eight 0:41:37.280 --> 0:41:40.799 years later you have your first black mayor. But this 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:48.080 incident May thirteenth, nineteen eighty five really tarnished his legacy. 0:41:49.480 --> 0:41:52.800 And I guess we need to also explain that that, 0:41:53.440 --> 0:41:56.920 you know, in addition to what happened in nineteen seventy eight. 0:41:58.800 --> 0:41:59.840 Has explained earlier. 0:42:00.120 --> 0:42:04.960 Nineteen eighty five, the city of Philadelphia flew a helicopters. 0:42:05.920 --> 0:42:10.480 I'm sorry it did it though, like you say, it Tarrens' legacy. 0:42:10.800 --> 0:42:14.960 Yet they he got re elected, and so he got 0:42:14.960 --> 0:42:19.560 re elected after that, and and so see, part of 0:42:19.600 --> 0:42:22.440 the problem is it's there's so much more to that 0:42:22.520 --> 0:42:26.560 where when you dehumanize a people, which is what the 0:42:26.640 --> 0:42:29.480 media did to move it makes it really easy to 0:42:29.640 --> 0:42:33.959 justify what's what happens to them insert whatever them you want, 0:42:34.320 --> 0:42:38.720 whether it's move or immigrants or natives or or whatever 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:42.560 group you want to insert, because they've been dehumanized, and 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:47.439 as such, it becomes easy to justify it, because how 0:42:47.560 --> 0:42:50.120 then do you not get confused by the idea of 0:42:50.239 --> 0:42:52.680 this man gets re elected the next year. 0:42:53.280 --> 0:42:56.879 But it's for me, there's always going to be an 0:42:56.960 --> 0:43:01.360 asterisk there, like or maybe you know, I'm just in 0:43:01.400 --> 0:43:03.879 the right mind of things. You know, of course, if 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:07.880 you were to ask an older black person or a 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:10.480 conservative person, I don't know. I just think that the 0:43:10.560 --> 0:43:17.240 stain of what happened to fifty two to the sixty 0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:20.320 two hundred block of Osage Avenue and the subsequent blocks 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:25.439 that also got destroyed, that was way way too There's 0:43:25.680 --> 0:43:28.640 there's always going to be an asterisk on. 0:43:30.200 --> 0:43:31.719 His entire legacy that. 0:43:32.480 --> 0:43:37.040 Is not going to be there for Rendell or Nutter 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:41.399 or any other mayor which and. 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:47.040 What's what's even weirder is that Rizzo was way worse. 0:43:47.200 --> 0:43:50.640 And I yes, I think he's one of the worst 0:43:50.680 --> 0:43:53.240 politicians of all time, but I think generally in history, 0:43:53.680 --> 0:43:57.399 like there isn't a statue of Wilson Good up in Philadelphia, 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:00.680 you know, there Now, if you were white, I'm certain 0:44:00.680 --> 0:44:02.440 that there would have been a lot of erasure and 0:44:02.760 --> 0:44:04.040 you know, a kind of. 0:44:05.800 --> 0:44:07.720 A revisionist history of his legacy. 0:44:08.360 --> 0:44:11.879 But you know, I mean, Wilson Good has actually been 0:44:11.920 --> 0:44:16.360 in I still consider in hiding. Like besides this interview, 0:44:17.160 --> 0:44:20.960 I can't recall ever seeing a Wilson Good SoundBite or 0:44:20.960 --> 0:44:25.520 an interview or anything in the last thirty five years. 0:44:25.920 --> 0:44:28.839 Now I'm interested to see about Mike and his relationship 0:44:28.880 --> 0:44:31.480 since he was the one that introduced him to the project. 0:44:31.680 --> 0:44:36.640 Because also, how did how did that? Well, yeah, I'm 0:44:36.680 --> 0:44:40.440 shocked to hear this. How did that even? How was that? Broker? 0:44:41.120 --> 0:44:46.279 Well, it wasn't easy. How it started was Wilson Good 0:44:47.120 --> 0:44:51.399 was honored with the street sign called Wilson Good Way 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:56.280 on his block where he lives. And when that happened, 0:44:56.800 --> 0:44:59.360 some members of the community who are also move and 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:03.239 move me is some porters were enraged by it, and 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:05.759 they talked about how they take their kids by that 0:45:06.000 --> 0:45:09.640 street on their way to school every day and they 0:45:09.680 --> 0:45:12.560 do not want to see a street sign of a 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:18.000 murderer on their block. So the pressure was so intense 0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:22.120 and Wilson it drew, it drew Wilson Good out. He 0:45:22.200 --> 0:45:23.000 got on the radio. 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:26.640 He talked about how you know he was he was 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:27.760 sorry for what happened. 0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:32.759 He had apologized multiple times he would be willing to 0:45:32.800 --> 0:45:37.480 support MOVE and John Africa for the rest of his life. 0:45:38.960 --> 0:45:43.640 And so at the time, the MOVE nine were still 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:48.200 in prison except for my mom. And when my mom 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:52.520 got out of prison, the head of the FOP, John mcnesby, 0:45:53.200 --> 0:45:56.880 made a statement that said one of the MOVE members 0:45:56.880 --> 0:46:00.359 slipped through the cracks, but the next man up, the 0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:02.600 next person up, we're gonna be waiting for. 0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:06.920 He pointed and said this Michael Davis was just my father. 0:46:07.360 --> 0:46:10.400 He said this, Michael Davis, We're gonna make sure that 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:13.120 he never sees the light of day. We're going to 0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:16.839 make sure that he stays in jail. And if that 0:46:16.960 --> 0:46:20.000 means that his he said, we want him to serve 0:46:20.040 --> 0:46:24.560 the full term. And if that means he dies before 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:28.880 his terms are up, we want his body, his corpse 0:46:28.920 --> 0:46:30.120 to occupy. 0:46:29.680 --> 0:46:32.400 A sell for interrupting. When was that said? 0:46:32.560 --> 0:46:37.560 That was in uh June twenty eighteen, right when she 0:46:37.600 --> 0:46:40.200 came out, right, all right, my mom got out. So 0:46:40.480 --> 0:46:43.600 when that happened, I knew that the pressure that we 0:46:43.640 --> 0:46:46.759 had applied and all of the work that we had 0:46:46.800 --> 0:46:50.279 done to get my mom out, I knew that we 0:46:50.280 --> 0:46:52.960 were going to need more. The way people see women 0:46:53.160 --> 0:46:55.440 as opposed to how they see men, it would be 0:46:55.440 --> 0:46:58.080 harder for my father to make parole than my mom. 0:46:58.360 --> 0:47:03.359 So Wilson said he wanted to help. So I called 0:47:03.440 --> 0:47:06.400 him and I told him, I said, you said you 0:47:06.440 --> 0:47:11.319 wanted to help help. So he said, okay. So he 0:47:11.360 --> 0:47:14.000 said he wanted to set up a meeting. He said 0:47:14.000 --> 0:47:16.359 there was certain information that he could help with. There 0:47:16.360 --> 0:47:19.160 are certain things that he knew, and he said he'd 0:47:19.200 --> 0:47:22.320 be willing to provide that information. He'd be willing to 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:27.640 provide support letters, He'd be willing to provide jobs. All 0:47:27.680 --> 0:47:30.040 of the things that the parole board needed you to 0:47:30.120 --> 0:47:34.240 have to make parole. He said he'd be willing to supply. 0:47:35.360 --> 0:47:38.800 So the first meeting that we had. 0:47:38.760 --> 0:47:40.440 Sounds like modern day mister. I'm sorry. 0:47:41.600 --> 0:47:45.400 It was great, but I didn't know this part of 0:47:45.640 --> 0:47:46.160 the story. 0:47:46.280 --> 0:47:47.880 That's crazy. I'm sorry. 0:47:48.200 --> 0:47:52.200 The first meeting that we had was I tell you so, 0:47:53.120 --> 0:47:55.359 just to give you a little bit of understanding about me, 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:59.480 my family, the children that were in the house. I 0:47:59.520 --> 0:48:02.640 think about them every day. There is not a day 0:48:02.680 --> 0:48:06.480 that goes by in the thirty five years since I've 0:48:06.480 --> 0:48:10.520 seen them last that I don't think about him every day. 0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:15.640 And the women and the men that were in the prison, 0:48:16.200 --> 0:48:20.040 they were the parents of the kids that were killed. 0:48:20.880 --> 0:48:25.400 So going into Wilson Good's office it was the hardest 0:48:25.400 --> 0:48:27.919 thing I ever had to do in my life. It 0:48:28.000 --> 0:48:33.560 was I felt like I felt so dirty, Like just 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:37.200 having a conversation with him and not jumping over the 0:48:37.239 --> 0:48:40.560 table to strangle him, I felt so I felt like 0:48:40.640 --> 0:48:43.399 I was betraying my family just looking at him and 0:48:43.440 --> 0:48:45.080 looking at him looking back at me. 0:48:46.440 --> 0:48:50.080 You know, I left the first meeting vomiting after. 0:48:51.520 --> 0:48:55.480 You know, it was it was really tough. But if 0:48:55.520 --> 0:48:58.239 you know anything about me, you know that I don't 0:48:58.280 --> 0:49:02.640 love anything more then I love my family, my whole 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:03.280 MOVE family. 0:49:04.000 --> 0:49:05.000 And so with. 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:08.600 One of the members of the Move nine dying in 0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:12.839 prison in twenty fifteen, you know, I just didn't want 0:49:12.840 --> 0:49:14.560 to see any other MOVE member come out of prison 0:49:14.640 --> 0:49:18.719 feet first. So I was willing to do whatever it took. 0:49:19.600 --> 0:49:22.319 It didn't matter how hard it was, it didn't matter 0:49:22.360 --> 0:49:25.640 how gut wrenching it was, it didn't matter how controversial 0:49:25.680 --> 0:49:29.960 it was. Because it was definitely controversial. People didn't like 0:49:30.040 --> 0:49:32.920 the idea of me going and sitting down and talking 0:49:32.960 --> 0:49:37.240 with Wilson Good but to bring my family home. 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:41.239 I was willing to do that, and I don't regret it. 0:49:41.280 --> 0:49:47.719 Can I ask something a tom? So this documentary is 0:49:48.800 --> 0:49:50.520 what one hour and forty five minutes? 0:49:50.560 --> 0:49:53.000 I believe an hour and forty nine. 0:49:53.600 --> 0:49:59.080 Okay, so under out under two hours? One slight left turn. 0:49:59.280 --> 0:50:03.759 And this could have easily have been It could have 0:50:03.800 --> 0:50:08.120 been a short docuseries, like just just for us to 0:50:08.160 --> 0:50:14.880 conduct this interview and just unwrap twenty percent of the story, 0:50:15.080 --> 0:50:17.839 you know, is a lot to. 0:50:18.040 --> 0:50:20.920 Have, no idea a mirror do. 0:50:21.200 --> 0:50:24.040 Okay, not even I'm not even trying to self promote 0:50:24.400 --> 0:50:27.200 because I'm doing a documentary that at the same time, 0:50:27.320 --> 0:50:30.200 like cutting your kids is one of the hardest things. 0:50:30.360 --> 0:50:32.239 I gotta keep this in and I gotta keep this in. 0:50:32.280 --> 0:50:34.480 All this too important, This is too important, and I'm 0:50:34.520 --> 0:50:37.919 hearing a lot of things that now I'm like, well, wait, 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:39.640 why wasn't that in the die? And then I realized 0:50:39.680 --> 0:50:41.760 that if you open that can of worms, then suddenly 0:50:43.040 --> 0:50:46.200 you're dealing with a three hour film. So talk about 0:50:46.760 --> 0:50:51.279 the storyline structure, like how hard was it? What was 0:50:51.320 --> 0:50:54.880 your original director's cut and how much did you have 0:50:54.960 --> 0:50:58.920 to cut on the floor just to get the sustinct 0:50:59.680 --> 0:51:02.359 start to finish story that you ended up with. 0:51:02.440 --> 0:51:03.760 Now that's just as powerful. 0:51:04.640 --> 0:51:08.600 So interestingly, I actually thought of this as a multi 0:51:08.640 --> 0:51:11.600 part piece to begin with, and that's what I started 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:15.719 talking to HBO about. And they thought that it was 0:51:16.080 --> 0:51:19.080 a feature. And actually what I said to them was 0:51:19.480 --> 0:51:22.000 if it was anybody but HBO, Manswer will be hell no. 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:27.279 But let me think about it. Okay, That's what I 0:51:27.320 --> 0:51:31.920 said verbatim, And so I thought about it and I 0:51:31.920 --> 0:51:35.400 I agreed, And then when I turned in the first cut, 0:51:35.560 --> 0:51:39.239 they were like, oh, I see what you were talking about. 0:51:39.600 --> 0:51:41.719 You want to have a conversation about this being more 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:44.319 than one part, and we can have that conversation. And 0:51:44.360 --> 0:51:47.239 at that point I was like no. And it was 0:51:47.360 --> 0:51:51.560 about figuring out how to be disciplined and tell the 0:51:51.640 --> 0:51:56.319 story in a way that that really worked, because there 0:51:56.400 --> 0:52:01.200 are so many things that we could dig into. We 0:52:01.239 --> 0:52:05.920 could dig into August eighth for two hours by itself, 0:52:06.239 --> 0:52:10.680 and I'm not exaggerating. We have so much footage around it, 0:52:10.760 --> 0:52:15.120 we have so many perspectives and there's so much archival 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:18.400 you can really dig into all of the details in 0:52:18.440 --> 0:52:22.880 so many ways. But for me, it was about understanding 0:52:22.880 --> 0:52:26.200 what the story was really about, understanding what the emotion was, 0:52:26.400 --> 0:52:29.640 which is this guy trying to get his parents home, 0:52:30.160 --> 0:52:33.680 and then the context around that, why are his parents 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:37.200 in and how do we be laser focused on that. 0:52:37.480 --> 0:52:39.840 There's a reason that the film moves the way that 0:52:39.840 --> 0:52:41.279 it does, that it looks the way that it does. 0:52:41.440 --> 0:52:44.160 That the cutting the shoe, Like I shot the entire 0:52:44.200 --> 0:52:47.080 film myself, I cut it with a partner, and part 0:52:47.080 --> 0:52:51.040 of it is the idea of stripping away. I lit 0:52:51.080 --> 0:52:52.359 the film out it, all of it, and so it's 0:52:52.440 --> 0:52:56.320 just stripping away all the things that take you away 0:52:56.320 --> 0:53:00.440 from the emotion and the story, and that's it. Mething 0:53:00.480 --> 0:53:03.399 that does not fit on that you pull away. 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:10.239 So the the scene in which Mike is about to 0:53:10.280 --> 0:53:15.719 hear that his mother is about to be released, you 0:53:15.800 --> 0:53:16.200 were there. 0:53:16.400 --> 0:53:19.320 How much FaceTime were you so? 0:53:19.840 --> 0:53:24.200 So so here's the thing, that's the one thing that 0:53:24.280 --> 0:53:28.120 I didn't and Mike and I had So Mike and 0:53:28.160 --> 0:53:30.520 I talked about this because we can imagine that scene 0:53:30.760 --> 0:53:31.759 image scene. 0:53:32.640 --> 0:53:34.719 So tell him about how you threatened me. You don't 0:53:34.719 --> 0:53:35.480 forget that part you. 0:53:36.080 --> 0:53:37.880 That you had to be there when it happened. 0:53:38.000 --> 0:53:40.439 So I was in La. I live in La. He's 0:53:40.480 --> 0:53:44.279 in Philly and and so, but I didn't. We had 0:53:44.280 --> 0:53:46.080 no idea when it was going to happen. So you 0:53:46.080 --> 0:53:48.319 can tell HI about the threat, right, So. 0:53:48.280 --> 0:53:48.680 I told you. 0:53:48.880 --> 0:53:50.880 I said, Tommy, I don't know when this is gonna happen. Man, 0:53:50.920 --> 0:53:53.080 if it's gonna happen, I said, what happens. If it 0:53:53.120 --> 0:53:54.759 happens and I just go pick her up? He said, 0:53:54.760 --> 0:53:56.799 if you pick her up without calling me, I will 0:53:56.960 --> 0:53:57.560 kill you. 0:54:03.239 --> 0:54:06.359 Yeah. I felled him on that because that was such 0:54:06.400 --> 0:54:11.600 a beautiful moment, like it was theatrical like just. 0:54:11.520 --> 0:54:14.320 So that that actual phone call I wasn't there for. 0:54:14.840 --> 0:54:18.840 But it was interesting because I was in I was 0:54:18.920 --> 0:54:21.319 in Miami at ABFF and I was there with my 0:54:21.360 --> 0:54:25.880 wife and our kids. And when he called me, we 0:54:25.880 --> 0:54:28.799 were actually planning on shooting a Black Love interview the 0:54:28.840 --> 0:54:31.839 following day, and so I had equipment with me which 0:54:31.840 --> 0:54:34.160 we had to cancel and they've never forgiven me since 0:54:34.160 --> 0:54:36.080 because I cancel it them. I couldn't tell them why. 0:54:36.280 --> 0:54:38.400 It was Juwan Howard and his wife and they just 0:54:38.400 --> 0:54:41.320 thought we blew him off. But anyway, so he called 0:54:41.360 --> 0:54:43.640 me at I think it was like ten am. I 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:47.799 was on literally the first flight out of Miami, and 0:54:48.320 --> 0:54:53.840 I got there and that evening and we drove. It 0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:56.120 was a seven hour drive because they were up in 0:54:56.239 --> 0:55:01.960 Cambridge Springs and so wait where Pennsylvania And so it's 0:55:02.000 --> 0:55:05.239 about as far as you can get and still be 0:55:05.239 --> 0:55:08.320 in Pennsylvania. And so seven hours drive driven. 0:55:07.880 --> 0:55:11.440 Hour from from uh what two hours from Niagara Falls. 0:55:11.560 --> 0:55:13.680 But so it's a drive that we made a bunch. 0:55:13.719 --> 0:55:14.920 But that was one of the times where it was 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:17.520 just like, okay, it's like there are I went back 0:55:17.520 --> 0:55:19.440 and forth a lot. I was probably in Philly. I 0:55:19.480 --> 0:55:21.480 was flying back to Philly at least once a month, 0:55:21.520 --> 0:55:24.920 sometimes twice a month, and more than that sort of 0:55:24.920 --> 0:55:27.480 woul needed, and so I was there as much as 0:55:27.520 --> 0:55:29.719 I could. But something like that where we had no 0:55:29.800 --> 0:55:32.319 idea when it was going to happen, we couldn't plan for. 0:55:32.840 --> 0:55:36.040 I had to rely on him where it was, Hey, 0:55:36.280 --> 0:55:37.520 I don't know what this is going to happen, but 0:55:37.560 --> 0:55:41.160 can you please make sure you captured and can you 0:55:41.160 --> 0:55:44.240 please make sure you captured widescreen? But that didn't happen. 0:55:44.280 --> 0:55:45.000 But it's all. 0:55:47.320 --> 0:55:53.759 It was like, wait, so this twenty eighteen, so that means, yeah, 0:55:53.800 --> 0:55:54.439 it couldn't happen. 0:55:54.600 --> 0:55:57.799 Okay, well I wasn't the one shooting. Somebody else was 0:55:57.800 --> 0:56:01.520 shooting and they didn't you know, even the whole sight. 0:56:04.480 --> 0:56:06.520 Well no, it just made it more authentic. And you know, 0:56:06.640 --> 0:56:08.279 now I got to go back and relook at it. 0:56:08.360 --> 0:56:14.560 But you know, I definitely I remember being floored watching it. 0:56:14.960 --> 0:56:15.480 And that's the. 0:56:15.480 --> 0:56:20.080 Thing, like I knew that Tommy knew that I didn't know, 0:56:21.640 --> 0:56:25.120 and you were so quiet that day and when it 0:56:25.239 --> 0:56:28.520 came I my heart dropped. 0:56:28.560 --> 0:56:31.439 I was like, oh, you didn't know that. You didn't 0:56:31.440 --> 0:56:33.200 know how it ended. You didn't know. Is that what 0:56:33.200 --> 0:56:33.640 you're saying. 0:56:34.640 --> 0:56:37.279 I thought I was going to just watch. 0:56:38.960 --> 0:56:42.200 If I thought watching it, what I thought I was 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:46.400 going to get out of it was how corrupt Rizzo 0:56:46.680 --> 0:56:48.160 was as a mayor. 0:56:48.880 --> 0:56:50.440 Not a beautiful kind of love. 0:56:50.840 --> 0:56:53.960 I didn't know. I wasn't expecting them. 0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:56.880 I guess it isn't. It's a themeon. 0:56:59.160 --> 0:57:01.440 It's just I didn't see it coming. 0:57:02.600 --> 0:57:04.680 If anything, I thought, okay, well maybe the statue will 0:57:04.719 --> 0:57:06.360 come down or better. 0:57:06.800 --> 0:57:09.200 You don't know how many times I go past that mural. 0:57:09.880 --> 0:57:11.960 I just wanted to egg the shit out that mural, 0:57:12.080 --> 0:57:14.200 like that's what I thought I thought the endinge was 0:57:14.200 --> 0:57:16.280 going to be. And then we took there is a 0:57:16.520 --> 0:57:17.840 mural down that's not the. 0:57:17.880 --> 0:57:20.320 Right Africa way, and mirror this is what we're learning 0:57:20.440 --> 0:57:21.360 right right. 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:23.800 Yes, but I didn't know about any of these things. 0:57:24.640 --> 0:57:26.520 I mean, we had no idea that they were going 0:57:26.560 --> 0:57:27.120 to come home. 0:57:27.560 --> 0:57:30.600 During the filming, we talked about it and like this 0:57:30.760 --> 0:57:33.440 was supposed to be something that could like bring you know, 0:57:33.560 --> 0:57:38.640 life to the case and help get people motivated to 0:57:38.680 --> 0:57:42.160 support them coming home, but there was no you know, 0:57:42.200 --> 0:57:43.880 we were doing all of this other stuff. 0:57:43.920 --> 0:57:46.000 I mean, there's a lot of stuff that did not 0:57:46.280 --> 0:57:46.760 make it. 0:57:46.680 --> 0:57:49.240 To the film. The work that we were doing, the 0:57:49.400 --> 0:57:53.920 meeting with the different politicians and the investigators, and we 0:57:54.080 --> 0:57:58.040 traveled to we almost got arrested, and. 0:58:01.320 --> 0:58:05.000 So I've got so there were several times, like actually 0:58:05.120 --> 0:58:08.640 several times. There was one time where we got I 0:58:08.680 --> 0:58:11.200 got chased off of the prison grounds and they followed us. 0:58:11.200 --> 0:58:14.600 There was another time where I was surrounded by four 0:58:14.720 --> 0:58:18.760 cop cars and about eight cops and it was insane. Also, 0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:21.880 every single time you see any footage at prison. I 0:58:21.920 --> 0:58:25.120 was probably this close to getting arrested because they do 0:58:25.280 --> 0:58:31.920 not allow cameras of I was going to but I 0:58:31.920 --> 0:58:35.040 didn't give a fuck. I needed for time and. 0:58:34.880 --> 0:58:36.400 I had to and I had to play that like 0:58:36.800 --> 0:58:39.600 the bad guy. I was like, Tommy, puts your phone down, 0:58:39.880 --> 0:58:43.200 but I was like, yeah, you know, but you know, 0:58:43.280 --> 0:58:46.800 but there was a lot of like really close calls 0:58:46.840 --> 0:58:48.920 when he when he was at the prison. We went 0:58:49.120 --> 0:58:52.160 to the prison to see delb where Delvil was beating 0:58:52.240 --> 0:58:54.400 the prison. He was beating it that he went to 0:58:54.520 --> 0:58:56.880 after he was beaten and all of that, and while 0:58:56.880 --> 0:58:59.919 we were there, Tommy calls me and there's there after 0:59:00.120 --> 0:59:03.280 you know, they're questioning police are questioning him because of whatever. 0:59:03.560 --> 0:59:05.640 And then when they get off the phone, they come 0:59:05.680 --> 0:59:09.600 to my car and they're like bringing their troops to 0:59:09.640 --> 0:59:14.200 snoop around. And none of that makes it to the film, 0:59:14.560 --> 0:59:17.480 But there was a whole lot of crazy moments where like, 0:59:18.520 --> 0:59:22.320 you know things ship was about to go down, like and. 0:59:22.320 --> 0:59:25.160 Some of it I have and I have it and 0:59:25.240 --> 0:59:27.560 you can see them, and I was sort of discreet 0:59:27.560 --> 0:59:29.160 about it, but I was still going to be like, 0:59:29.200 --> 0:59:33.320 you know what, in case something happens. Actually when I 0:59:33.360 --> 0:59:36.360 got stopped and there were five cops around me. I 0:59:37.120 --> 0:59:40.640 called Sean King and I called him and I texted 0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:43.320 and They'm like, just in case some shit goes down, 0:59:43.600 --> 0:59:48.160 I want you to know where I am. And so, yeah, whoa, yeah, 0:59:48.520 --> 0:59:50.840 they were not playing around, yo. 0:59:51.120 --> 0:59:53.880 Can I ask y'all since y'all mentioned Delbert because not 0:59:53.960 --> 0:59:55.840 for nothing? You know, we talked about and we said 0:59:55.880 --> 0:59:58.000 it as a sport. We were spoiling the end, and 0:59:58.200 --> 1:00:02.000 we've said that Mike's parents were both released. Beautiful ending, 1:00:02.000 --> 1:00:03.840 but at the same time, it was a multi kind 1:00:03.880 --> 1:00:08.919 of layered emotional ending, right because as we're seeing mice 1:00:09.320 --> 1:00:13.600 parents reunite and we're seeing Delbert home, you have this 1:00:13.680 --> 1:00:17.360 moment of like he was in his twenties, he got 1:00:17.400 --> 1:00:20.959 his ass beat for no fucking reason, Like, can y'all 1:00:20.960 --> 1:00:24.000 talk about Delbert in his life that we things that 1:00:24.040 --> 1:00:25.120 we may have, you know, we didn't. 1:00:25.160 --> 1:00:26.760 Y'all don't get a chance to show in the story. 1:00:26.760 --> 1:00:33.680 And I've actually never talked about this part I am. 1:00:34.040 --> 1:00:40.439 So Delbert got out in January of this year, and 1:00:40.640 --> 1:00:44.160 he did almost forties years, and I'd gotten now Delbert 1:00:44.200 --> 1:00:46.360 pretty well went to see him in prison. A couple 1:00:46.400 --> 1:00:49.640 of times, and he was just a sort of like Mike, 1:00:49.800 --> 1:00:56.000 just a positive, happy, good guy. Actually he kind of 1:00:56.000 --> 1:00:59.520 reminded me of General Iro from Avatar. 1:01:00.920 --> 1:01:02.640 Yeah, there you go, there you go. 1:01:03.560 --> 1:01:06.160 And I'd gotten to know him and he was just 1:01:06.160 --> 1:01:08.280 a good guy. And then he finally got out, and 1:01:09.080 --> 1:01:11.760 I was there when he got out, And which is 1:01:11.960 --> 1:01:13.520 if I don't know if you've I hope you have, 1:01:13.680 --> 1:01:15.600 but if you haven't, watched to the very end of 1:01:15.640 --> 1:01:20.240 the film, because there's a very small clip of him. 1:01:20.440 --> 1:01:24.000 But the thing that was so hard for me was 1:01:24.240 --> 1:01:28.600 I was just about done editing the film, and the 1:01:28.760 --> 1:01:31.040 ending was really hard because I wanted to figure out 1:01:31.080 --> 1:01:33.720 the right balance of things. And then as I'm doing that, 1:01:34.680 --> 1:01:38.400 Delbert again forty two years in prison, got out in January, 1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:42.000 less than six months, like five and a half months afterward, 1:01:42.280 --> 1:01:48.040 he died. He died, and it broke my heart and 1:01:48.960 --> 1:01:54.439 the balance, the dance of trying to figure out how 1:01:54.520 --> 1:01:58.520 to make sure that I was honoring him, my friend, 1:01:58.600 --> 1:02:02.840 this man who went through so much, but also not 1:02:04.640 --> 1:02:06.840 at It's just there was a lot, because you go 1:02:06.880 --> 1:02:09.360 through this roller coaster of emotions and and like Mayor 1:02:09.480 --> 1:02:12.040 was talking about, it's like as you watch the film, 1:02:12.360 --> 1:02:14.440 it's sort of there where you're like, you want them 1:02:14.440 --> 1:02:16.880 to get out, but you don't want to allow yourself 1:02:16.920 --> 1:02:20.400 to believe that it's going to happen, because the disappointment 1:02:20.560 --> 1:02:24.600 of that happening after allowing yourself to believe is a lot, 1:02:25.000 --> 1:02:28.200 because it's it's typically what happens. And so after sort 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:32.040 of that a juggle, and then you finally do you 1:02:32.120 --> 1:02:35.480 get there and it's this fairy tale ending, it's this 1:02:35.520 --> 1:02:38.600 thing that's happier and better than you could have ever 1:02:38.640 --> 1:02:44.200 hoped for. And then to show, oh, but Delbert died. 1:02:45.080 --> 1:02:49.840 I didn't see I didn't. I didn't because I could 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:52.000 not figure out the yo yo of it. Yeah, I 1:02:52.040 --> 1:02:54.760 couldn't figure out how to go from here to here 1:02:54.880 --> 1:02:57.840 to here to hear without it feeling weird, which is 1:02:57.880 --> 1:03:02.400 why it's a here he's there, you see him, you 1:03:02.480 --> 1:03:05.680 hear him. And so that was my way of figuring 1:03:05.720 --> 1:03:09.120 out how to honor who he was and sort of 1:03:09.160 --> 1:03:13.280 what he stood for while still balancing the emotion and 1:03:13.320 --> 1:03:14.920 the journey of the film. 1:03:15.160 --> 1:03:17.240 And you answered a question for the viewer because as 1:03:17.240 --> 1:03:19.120 of viewers and see was such a pivotal part of 1:03:19.160 --> 1:03:22.080 the story. You wanted to know what happened to Dover 1:03:23.040 --> 1:03:25.200 and it was just you came. It was just so 1:03:25.280 --> 1:03:27.440 perfect in his face. Oh and this in years on 1:03:27.520 --> 1:03:29.680 his Oh, it's just so rest in peace. 1:03:30.120 --> 1:03:31.960 That was also one of the happiest things for me 1:03:32.200 --> 1:03:35.160 because I had been I'd seen this guy for so 1:03:35.280 --> 1:03:39.840 long in archival footage and photos and that's all I 1:03:39.880 --> 1:03:42.280 knew him ass And the first time I saw him 1:03:42.680 --> 1:03:47.360 it was plus thirty five years, like there was no gradation, 1:03:47.440 --> 1:03:49.919 there was nothing in between. It was just, oh, yeah, 1:03:49.960 --> 1:03:52.680 here's this, you know, thirty year old man, here's this 1:03:53.480 --> 1:04:00.400 sixty five year old man. And it was trippy. 1:04:01.040 --> 1:04:05.640 Can I ask I guess at the time, when you 1:04:05.680 --> 1:04:12.120 officially have the green light and you're you're doing this project, 1:04:12.320 --> 1:04:15.480 in your mind, are you like this project is over 1:04:16.560 --> 1:04:23.080 when they are released or you know, okay, so say 1:04:22.240 --> 1:04:29.880 their bail gets denied back in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, 1:04:30.760 --> 1:04:34.680 for you, is it just like back before you knew 1:04:34.720 --> 1:04:38.720 there was a chance for it to really happen? Is 1:04:38.760 --> 1:04:42.360 there an alternative ending in your mind that would have 1:04:42.440 --> 1:04:46.760 completed this documentary if they had never gotten out out 1:04:46.800 --> 1:04:47.280 of prison. 1:04:47.880 --> 1:04:52.760 So it's a good question, and it's I'm the personal 1:04:52.800 --> 1:04:57.320 greenlit this film, and so HBO came on as a distributor. 1:04:57.800 --> 1:04:59.840 But I paid for this film out of my pocket. 1:05:00.320 --> 1:05:03.760 And so it was not about the idea of, hey, 1:05:04.040 --> 1:05:05.880 let's do this as a piece of business that needs 1:05:05.920 --> 1:05:07.920 to make sense and we have to know what these 1:05:07.920 --> 1:05:12.080 things are. I did it because I what Mike was 1:05:12.120 --> 1:05:15.960 doing was important and who he was was somebody that 1:05:16.320 --> 1:05:19.240 I wanted to be able to capture and showcase and 1:05:19.280 --> 1:05:22.560 be around. And that's what it was. And so it wasn't, hey, 1:05:22.600 --> 1:05:24.120 these things need to happen in order for this to 1:05:24.120 --> 1:05:26.280 make sense. It's like, no, it's like I was spending 1:05:26.320 --> 1:05:28.400 my own money. I was doing whatever I needed to 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:33.040 do to capture it without an HBO, without anybody, and 1:05:33.120 --> 1:05:35.240 you know, that was just what I wanted to do, 1:05:35.640 --> 1:05:42.120 and so it and so in many ways, it's sort 1:05:42.160 --> 1:05:46.600 of running over a cane while building a bridge at 1:05:46.600 --> 1:05:48.280 the same time, and it's just like, you know what, 1:05:48.720 --> 1:05:52.040 I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And in 1:05:52.080 --> 1:05:54.120 the end, if it doesn't make sense, it's all good. 1:05:54.880 --> 1:05:56.120 It's all good because it's. 1:05:55.960 --> 1:05:59.800 Still information that nobody had too for for sure, Right, 1:06:00.480 --> 1:06:02.280 you're still educating the masses. 1:06:02.760 --> 1:06:09.080 Yeah, so so much to unpack here, because is there 1:06:09.720 --> 1:06:12.520 is there more story to tell? 1:06:12.560 --> 1:06:18.000 Like now that this is over, can you officially put 1:06:18.040 --> 1:06:19.000 this behind you? 1:06:19.200 --> 1:06:22.000 Or is there are there other fights that we don't 1:06:22.080 --> 1:06:25.760 know about or that we're not aware of. So, first 1:06:25.760 --> 1:06:31.360 of all, Mike, are you kind of a qualified paralegal? 1:06:31.880 --> 1:06:33.480 I mean do you? 1:06:34.400 --> 1:06:37.360 First of all, what was day What was day one 1:06:37.440 --> 1:06:42.160 for you when you decided I have to get them home? 1:06:42.520 --> 1:06:44.960 Like what do you remember the day where you're like 1:06:46.040 --> 1:06:49.720 hand on table, Okay, I gotta do this, and I'm 1:06:49.720 --> 1:06:52.920 gonna find go to city hall, find some papers, Like 1:06:53.000 --> 1:06:56.160 what year was it when you were like all right, 1:06:56.560 --> 1:06:58.840 I gotta do this myself twenty fifteen. 1:06:59.200 --> 1:07:02.280 But you know, I think what it was is when 1:07:02.320 --> 1:07:05.800 Romota came and got me, when I Askedally to come 1:07:05.840 --> 1:07:10.800 get me. That was in nineteen ninety two, and she 1:07:11.080 --> 1:07:15.200 threw me right into I'm in lawyers' offices and learning 1:07:15.240 --> 1:07:19.360 about the case, and the lawyers are quizzing me. They're 1:07:19.360 --> 1:07:21.360 telling me, listen, this is your parents. You need to 1:07:21.400 --> 1:07:27.440 know this information. And I've been around lawyers ever since thirteen, 1:07:27.600 --> 1:07:33.440 fourteen years old, so learning and hearing the language that 1:07:33.440 --> 1:07:38.920 they use and creating strategies and learning about the different 1:07:40.000 --> 1:07:43.680 ways in which that you can insert information to judges 1:07:43.720 --> 1:07:46.160 where they accepted. If you don't do it the right way, 1:07:46.200 --> 1:07:50.040 you don't use a certain language, you don't enter it 1:07:50.040 --> 1:07:53.400 into the right court, it won't be accepted. I was 1:07:53.480 --> 1:07:54.080 learning all of. 1:07:54.040 --> 1:07:56.280 This type of information since then. 1:07:57.440 --> 1:08:01.080 I think as a teenager. Correct, I was fourteen years old. 1:08:02.760 --> 1:08:05.520 I was fourteen years old when I first started in that. 1:08:05.960 --> 1:08:09.600 Yeah, I was falling asleep and lawyer's offices because it 1:08:09.680 --> 1:08:12.040 was boring information I didn't want to hear. I mean, 1:08:12.160 --> 1:08:13.720 it wasn't that I want to, but it was boring. 1:08:13.840 --> 1:08:14.760 I'm fourteen years old. 1:08:14.760 --> 1:08:17.799 I got a namagy I shouldn't play ball, right, So I'm. 1:08:18.080 --> 1:08:20.880 Falling asleep and all that kind of stuff, and they're like, 1:08:21.240 --> 1:08:23.599 you know, sometimes they let me sleep, but sometimes they 1:08:23.640 --> 1:08:26.840 woke me up and made me pay attention. So as 1:08:26.920 --> 1:08:29.600 time went on, I was always around Ramona, I was 1:08:29.600 --> 1:08:32.720 always around Pam, involved them with me and stuff a lot, right, 1:08:33.000 --> 1:08:37.200 learning about his case and the illegal the illegalities of it, 1:08:37.280 --> 1:08:39.760 and the ways in which to try to support him. 1:08:39.800 --> 1:08:47.120 And I've always been involved in it. So in twenty fifteen, 1:08:47.160 --> 1:08:54.599 when Phil passed away in jail, and Ramona had gotten 1:08:54.640 --> 1:08:58.439 sick herself and we found out later that she had 1:08:58.479 --> 1:09:02.719 stage four can answer and she had had a massive 1:09:02.760 --> 1:09:06.040 stroke too, So she really was like kind of the 1:09:06.040 --> 1:09:08.600 person that was kind of driving the Move nine information, 1:09:08.720 --> 1:09:11.880 and she was out of the picture because she couldn't 1:09:11.880 --> 1:09:15.280 do it anymore. And she told me, she. 1:09:15.360 --> 1:09:18.200 Said, I said for MoMA. I said, listen, I said, Lona, 1:09:18.640 --> 1:09:19.160 people are. 1:09:19.080 --> 1:09:22.599 Calling me this investigator he's calling and the lawyer wants 1:09:22.640 --> 1:09:24.559 to know something, and we need to pick a lawyer. 1:09:24.560 --> 1:09:25.960 We don't need to have a lawyer for the Move 1:09:26.080 --> 1:09:28.160 nine And what are we going to do? 1:09:29.560 --> 1:09:33.240 And she gave me a sit down and she said, listen, 1:09:34.400 --> 1:09:40.960 she said, you've been around this information long enough. You're smart. 1:09:41.280 --> 1:09:44.080 Do of those people are your parents, one is your uncle. 1:09:45.360 --> 1:09:47.120 You know all of the people. You know the case, 1:09:48.240 --> 1:09:51.000 and you have plenty of move belief in your head. 1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:54.519 You are going to have to take the lead on 1:09:54.600 --> 1:09:56.800 this stuff and you're going to have to have the 1:09:56.840 --> 1:09:58.840 confidence in yourself to know that you can do it. 1:09:59.560 --> 1:10:01.160 I know that that you can do it. You need 1:10:01.200 --> 1:10:03.479 to know that, so you need to just go ahead 1:10:03.520 --> 1:10:06.960 and do it. So when she told me that, I said, okay. 1:10:07.520 --> 1:10:10.080 And you know, I had my own ideas about what 1:10:10.120 --> 1:10:13.160 I thought should happened, and my dad had been giving 1:10:13.160 --> 1:10:15.719 me information and my uncle Chuck, who was who's wanting 1:10:15.720 --> 1:10:18.599 to move nine too, my mom's little brother, and they 1:10:18.640 --> 1:10:22.600 fed me information and I used what I had and 1:10:22.840 --> 1:10:24.680 Tommy was part of it, you know, with him, we 1:10:25.040 --> 1:10:29.880 talked about different things, and then we just kept on 1:10:30.000 --> 1:10:35.080 pushing and eventually we developed a strategy that proved to 1:10:35.120 --> 1:10:38.400 be true, too, proved to be right. 1:10:38.560 --> 1:10:41.280 So that's how it happened. 1:10:42.320 --> 1:10:45.559 Slight sidebar. I do want to know like human moments, 1:10:45.600 --> 1:10:47.320 like did you get to go to your prime? 1:10:47.520 --> 1:10:50.400 Do you so so amazingly enough? 1:10:53.479 --> 1:10:56.200 I asked me. When my mom first came home, I 1:10:56.240 --> 1:10:59.759 told her, I said, Mom, you spent forty years in prison. 1:11:00.720 --> 1:11:03.880 I don't have a lot of money, but whatever you 1:11:03.920 --> 1:11:06.360 say you want, I will make it happen. I know 1:11:06.400 --> 1:11:09.280 a lot of people. I don't care what it is. 1:11:09.360 --> 1:11:13.559 Whatever you say you want, I'll make it happen. And 1:11:13.800 --> 1:11:15.920 she was living with me at the time, and Mom 1:11:15.960 --> 1:11:18.160 said to me, she said, honey, I'm just happy to 1:11:18.200 --> 1:11:20.879 be home with you. She said, you gave me everything 1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:24.320 that I wanted, and now I want you to be 1:11:24.400 --> 1:11:25.679 free and I want you to fly. 1:11:26.960 --> 1:11:29.200 So I'm like, all right, cool. So when when my 1:11:29.280 --> 1:11:30.280 dad came home. 1:11:30.479 --> 1:11:35.320 Wait, wait so quick, quick sidebar. The song that you 1:11:35.360 --> 1:11:39.760 hear when the film ends, fly Baby, that's him. That's him, 1:11:40.920 --> 1:11:42.120 fly Baby. 1:11:41.840 --> 1:11:46.439 Right, based on that conversation we had, So when my 1:11:46.560 --> 1:11:50.000 dad came came home, he says, I say the same 1:11:50.000 --> 1:11:52.560 thing to him. Dad, you've been in prison forty years. 1:11:53.680 --> 1:11:55.920 You can have I don't care what you asked for. 1:11:57.080 --> 1:11:59.000 I don't have a lot of money, but I'll make 1:11:59.040 --> 1:12:03.439 it happen. What do you want, he said, Mike, I 1:12:03.479 --> 1:12:07.920 only want one thing, he said. I want to marry 1:12:07.920 --> 1:12:13.360 your mom. Wow, he said, He said, I want to 1:12:13.360 --> 1:12:16.320 marry your mom like I should have done forty years ago. 1:12:16.400 --> 1:12:19.040 Oh tom oh, Tommy, is it gonna be an episode 1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:19.360 of Black? 1:12:19.400 --> 1:12:21.640 What are we doing? So you? 1:12:22.280 --> 1:12:24.679 I got you because what I did. Sorry to cut 1:12:24.720 --> 1:12:26.559 you off with what I did. There was so much 1:12:26.600 --> 1:12:29.880 footage that did not fit, and had so many interviews 1:12:30.560 --> 1:12:33.439 with Mike and with his mom and with Mike and 1:12:33.520 --> 1:12:36.960 Debbie and so it's just a lot of really cool things. 1:12:37.200 --> 1:12:41.519 So I cut a thirty five minute epilogue and it 1:12:41.560 --> 1:12:45.960 looks at them and it is just so sweet. I'll 1:12:46.000 --> 1:12:48.000 actually send it to you. I'll send it to you tonight, 1:12:49.439 --> 1:12:51.800 and it's actually going to be on HBO as well, 1:12:51.840 --> 1:12:54.080 and so it'll be so like additional content. 1:12:54.160 --> 1:12:56.640 They are so TV ready, they're so gorgeous. 1:12:56.880 --> 1:12:59.479 It is so I sent it to Mike and his 1:12:59.560 --> 1:13:01.200 parents a month ago. 1:13:02.800 --> 1:13:04.559 To see the wedding. You get to see the wedding. 1:13:05.680 --> 1:13:10.439 And so the wedding cake, that the four tier wedding 1:13:10.439 --> 1:13:13.439 cake we made. We made my mom. So my mom 1:13:13.520 --> 1:13:16.360 is a I'm a fifties man like at heart. My 1:13:16.360 --> 1:13:19.720 mom is a thirties woman at heart. She when they 1:13:19.760 --> 1:13:23.479 said fifteen hundred dollars for cake, what I'm not paying fifteen. 1:13:24.000 --> 1:13:27.760 I'm not letting you paid fifteen. So I'm like, she said, 1:13:27.760 --> 1:13:29.800 we can make that cake and it'll be a great moment. 1:13:29.840 --> 1:13:32.160 I said, yeah, okay, let's do it. It took us 1:13:32.200 --> 1:13:34.720 eleven hours. In the song, I said, we spent the 1:13:34.840 --> 1:13:36.639 night making her wedding cake. 1:13:36.880 --> 1:13:40.599 Wow, And that is in the thing. 1:13:41.439 --> 1:13:45.080 This is now about to turn into reality show. Tyler 1:13:45.120 --> 1:13:46.640 Perry's the Africa's. 1:13:47.840 --> 1:13:53.000 Yes no, but don't let Tyler touch it, don't are you? 1:13:53.120 --> 1:13:55.800 Tommy Africa. 1:13:57.120 --> 1:13:59.360 From one inspectrum to the other in inspectrum. 1:13:59.439 --> 1:14:04.559 Yes, you guys mentioned something that I personally wanted to know. 1:14:05.479 --> 1:14:08.679 You know, there was a there was a moment in 1:14:08.720 --> 1:14:16.160 the mid nineties, uh, the late the early aughts in 1:14:16.200 --> 1:14:21.479 which a lot of conversations about Mumia's future was up 1:14:21.479 --> 1:14:23.800 in the air, you know, stay of execution. All these 1:14:23.840 --> 1:14:30.160 things haven't heard much since, you know, like I guess 1:14:30.320 --> 1:14:35.000 two thousand and four, two thousand and five. Occasionally when 1:14:35.160 --> 1:14:40.760 when I talked to tom Arello, he'll give me an 1:14:40.840 --> 1:14:47.360 update in general, is there and I don't mean the 1:14:47.439 --> 1:14:49.759 kind of hope where you like, we hope this happens. 1:14:50.960 --> 1:14:55.920 Where where does Momia stand right now as far as 1:14:55.920 --> 1:15:01.920 this case concerned. Is there any hope or for his 1:15:02.120 --> 1:15:07.320 eventual release or total exoneration or just the general story. 1:15:08.240 --> 1:15:10.599 Definitely, So that's what we're working on now. 1:15:10.680 --> 1:15:14.280 So you know, it's funny like the HBO poster has 1:15:14.320 --> 1:15:17.160 a picture of me and the Move nine above me, 1:15:17.200 --> 1:15:19.200 and it says he will never be free until his 1:15:19.280 --> 1:15:22.719 family comes home, right, And that's such a true statement. 1:15:23.160 --> 1:15:26.200 Mamia I've been I've known Mamia since I was a kid, 1:15:26.320 --> 1:15:30.240 and my work around the Move nine doesn't end with 1:15:30.439 --> 1:15:33.000 trying to get them. Trying to get them home is 1:15:33.960 --> 1:15:37.080 equally distributed, and probably even more so with Momia, Like 1:15:37.160 --> 1:15:39.160 I have just as many files on Mamia as I 1:15:39.200 --> 1:15:43.800 do on the Move nine. And so my work has 1:15:43.840 --> 1:15:47.000 been in large part to help with his case too. 1:15:47.520 --> 1:15:51.240 And in the early part of this year, in January, 1:15:52.320 --> 1:15:57.960 he was granted by Judge Leon Tucker the right to 1:15:58.280 --> 1:16:03.759 appeal his case and a PCR post conviction relief appeal 1:16:04.680 --> 1:16:08.639 was granted, and so it was in Larry Krasner's hands. 1:16:09.320 --> 1:16:13.040 Larry Krasner was then attacked by Marie Faulkner as being 1:16:13.280 --> 1:16:13.720 saying that. 1:16:13.920 --> 1:16:17.000 She was saying that he was prejudiced. He was on 1:16:17.040 --> 1:16:18.360 the MIA's side and all of this. 1:16:18.439 --> 1:16:21.519 So she created this thing that got it pushed into 1:16:21.560 --> 1:16:24.200 the Supreme Court's hands. And so now it's kind of 1:16:24.240 --> 1:16:29.439 in limbo and with COVID things are moving much slower. 1:16:30.520 --> 1:16:32.600 But the answer to your question is, yes, there's a 1:16:32.680 --> 1:16:37.280 real chance that Mumia Abu Jamal could be free, and 1:16:37.479 --> 1:16:40.040 we're working on that very hard and if we can 1:16:41.640 --> 1:16:44.000 get the result that we're that we expect that we 1:16:44.040 --> 1:16:48.479 can get. Ironically enough, he could come home. During that 1:16:48.560 --> 1:16:49.800 forty year mark too. 1:16:50.640 --> 1:16:52.120 Wow, Where's where's he at now? 1:16:52.479 --> 1:16:52.559 Ye? 1:16:53.240 --> 1:16:58.320 Right, he's at uh In on December ninth, This December ninth, 1:16:58.400 --> 1:17:03.800 March year thirty nine. Yeah, okay, so next year is 1:17:04.080 --> 1:17:06.800 year forty and we expect that we can get him 1:17:06.840 --> 1:17:09.679 home within that year forty Okay? 1:17:09.720 --> 1:17:13.559 Can you are you allowed to speak at all? What 1:17:13.600 --> 1:17:18.320 your personal theories are? Similar to good sort of saying 1:17:20.760 --> 1:17:23.599 that it was most likely friendly fly fire and this 1:17:23.760 --> 1:17:24.400 was a setup? 1:17:25.760 --> 1:17:31.360 Is what is the story on that particular with Daniel 1:17:31.400 --> 1:17:34.400 Faulkner and right that case, the. 1:17:34.360 --> 1:17:40.639 Story is Mumia was a cab driver who was dropping 1:17:40.680 --> 1:17:44.040 off of Fair and thirteenth and Locusts at the time. 1:17:44.560 --> 1:17:47.400 His brother was His brother and his brother's friend were 1:17:47.439 --> 1:17:51.800 bending and they were when he pulled up on the scene. 1:17:51.800 --> 1:17:54.559 When Moumia pulled up on the scene, he saw his 1:17:54.600 --> 1:17:59.439 brother's brother being beat by policeman Daniel Faulkner with a 1:17:59.680 --> 1:18:02.840 right He was beating in with a flashlight, a police flashlight. 1:18:03.320 --> 1:18:09.160 Mamia goes over to intervene. The officer shoots Mamiya and 1:18:09.320 --> 1:18:15.720 Mamiya is shot, unconscious and ben and taken to the hospital. 1:18:16.760 --> 1:18:20.759 And when he wakes up, he's handcuffed to a bed 1:18:21.320 --> 1:18:23.920 and he's told that an officer was killed and he's 1:18:24.000 --> 1:18:25.240 the one being charged. 1:18:25.080 --> 1:18:27.160 With the murder. That's what happened. 1:18:27.720 --> 1:18:32.320 And there's so much like so many witnesses who said 1:18:32.680 --> 1:18:34.960 that Mumiya did not do it, do it. He was 1:18:35.040 --> 1:18:40.000 not the shooter. But there are so many like they're 1:18:40.320 --> 1:18:44.840 specifically Veronica Jones was an eyewitness said that Mumia Abu 1:18:44.960 --> 1:18:48.479 Jamal did not shoot this cop. We saw the man 1:18:48.520 --> 1:18:51.800 who did it. We saw him run away. There were 1:18:51.840 --> 1:18:54.439 more than more than her, and who said that the 1:18:54.479 --> 1:18:59.240 security guards that were intimidated into they were intimidated by 1:18:59.280 --> 1:19:03.400 the officers into changing their stories to say Mumia Abu 1:19:03.439 --> 1:19:06.559 Jamal was the one who killed the cops. So there's 1:19:07.320 --> 1:19:10.760 all this evidence that proves that Mumia is innocent. But 1:19:11.160 --> 1:19:13.599 you know, because he supported moved the way he did, 1:19:14.120 --> 1:19:16.639 Rizzo threatened him. He actually said it in the press conference. 1:19:16.960 --> 1:19:19.479 These reporters blah blah blah blah blah. We need to 1:19:19.479 --> 1:19:21.280 get that death penalty back. Then I'll be there to 1:19:21.320 --> 1:19:24.280 pull switch that kind of thing. So uh me a 1:19:24.320 --> 1:19:26.720 supported move and that's and and so he was he 1:19:26.880 --> 1:19:28.240 was a target because of it. 1:19:29.360 --> 1:19:32.479 Any other political prisoners in Philadelphia that we might not 1:19:32.560 --> 1:19:33.160 be aware of. 1:19:33.600 --> 1:19:39.080 Yeah, Russell, Maroon Shows, Joseph Jojo Bowen, Fred Muhammad Burton. 1:19:39.600 --> 1:19:42.920 There's a lot of political prisoners in Pennsylvania, and then. 1:19:42.880 --> 1:19:48.640 There's a lot outside too, Motulu Shakur stepfather of tupac Uh. 1:19:48.680 --> 1:19:51.559 And then some people are not even political prisoners, but 1:19:51.600 --> 1:19:54.120 they're exiled because of the tyranny of this country, like 1:19:54.120 --> 1:19:56.840 a side of Shakur. So you know, there's a lot 1:19:56.880 --> 1:19:58.599 of a lot of a lot of repair that needs 1:19:58.600 --> 1:20:01.639 to be done. But my focus specific typically is on Mamia. 1:20:01.760 --> 1:20:04.120 We we have a real shot to get him out. 1:20:04.320 --> 1:20:09.000 And I mean I focus on Maroon two and freyd 1:20:09.080 --> 1:20:11.400 Mohammed Burton too, and I speak their names and everything 1:20:11.400 --> 1:20:15.679 and I support them one hundred percent too. But Mumiya 1:20:15.920 --> 1:20:19.519 is a very very personal battle for me because of 1:20:19.560 --> 1:20:22.080 how he was there for my family when no. 1:20:22.160 --> 1:20:24.240 Other news media was there for my family. 1:20:25.840 --> 1:20:26.960 The Philadelphia police. 1:20:27.760 --> 1:20:34.600 Yeah, the things I learned, man, what can I say, Like, 1:20:34.680 --> 1:20:38.519 I really want to thank you guys for doing this, 1:20:39.680 --> 1:20:42.559 just that you know, as as as a black man, 1:20:42.720 --> 1:20:47.840 as a as a Philadelphian, definitely, this is this is 1:20:47.880 --> 1:20:53.400 one of the kind of the unanswered questions that I've 1:20:53.439 --> 1:20:55.760 had in my life that I didn't know about. And 1:20:55.800 --> 1:21:02.520 I'm so glad that the world will finally get to 1:21:02.560 --> 1:21:03.640 see this documentary. 1:21:04.400 --> 1:21:06.160 Can we just mentioned the mirror. You're not gonna plug it, 1:21:06.200 --> 1:21:06.639 but I will. 1:21:06.760 --> 1:21:09.240 This is the first project that I've seen your name 1:21:09.320 --> 1:21:13.040 black thought comment, John forgot that Jackson. 1:21:13.600 --> 1:21:16.800 I'm just saying saying about me, man, I'm just saying. 1:21:16.520 --> 1:21:19.040 But that's dope that y'all saw that there was a 1:21:19.080 --> 1:21:19.920 reason there was a. 1:21:19.880 --> 1:21:21.040 Need for Yeah, I totally forgot. 1:21:21.120 --> 1:21:23.720 Yes, we're also we did music for the project as well. 1:21:23.800 --> 1:21:25.880 Forgive me, I mean, like no. 1:21:26.000 --> 1:21:29.479 For me, Like the story is so the story is 1:21:29.479 --> 1:21:34.120 so important that you know, I kind of forgot that 1:21:34.720 --> 1:21:37.720 I played a part in this as well, and I'm 1:21:37.760 --> 1:21:40.799 glad to be included because I was feeling a certain way. 1:21:40.720 --> 1:21:46.680 Might say that I really appreciate your involvement because you know, 1:21:46.880 --> 1:21:49.760 it wasn't a lot of people are really afraid to 1:21:49.800 --> 1:21:52.800 talk about this story. A lot of people were really 1:21:52.840 --> 1:21:55.479 afraid to get on board and support move, even though 1:21:55.479 --> 1:21:58.200 they may have been sympathetic. So I really, you know, 1:21:58.680 --> 1:22:02.280 was thrilled to here Tommy tell me, like, hey, guess 1:22:02.320 --> 1:22:04.880 who guess who we got to help with the with 1:22:04.920 --> 1:22:07.240 the film, and I'm like, oh, he's like the biggest 1:22:08.040 --> 1:22:10.080 Dan you can think of. 1:22:10.240 --> 1:22:18.280 And I'm like, what do you mean, the biggest thing. No, 1:22:19.120 --> 1:22:23.840 the biggest Okay, Philly, Philly, Like yeah, I'm like, no, 1:22:24.000 --> 1:22:27.920 you didn't, you know, So like yeah, man, I just 1:22:28.040 --> 1:22:32.040 you know, really appreciate you, you know, and gave Tommy 1:22:32.040 --> 1:22:34.800 a chance to show it, to see the film, you know. 1:22:34.880 --> 1:22:36.040 So I just want to thank. 1:22:35.880 --> 1:22:37.840 You, no, thank you. 1:22:37.960 --> 1:22:42.400 When I got admit when it was happening and my 1:22:42.479 --> 1:22:46.120 manager Sean g told me about it, he was like, yeah, 1:22:46.120 --> 1:22:48.800 you know comming and John Legend. 1:22:48.800 --> 1:22:50.400 Wait a minute, wait a minute, you did me or 1:22:50.400 --> 1:22:51.280 I would have did the same thing. 1:22:51.320 --> 1:22:53.360 They can't happ on it before me full time. 1:22:53.560 --> 1:22:56.640 I mean technically, look, you know a lot of a 1:22:56.640 --> 1:22:59.920 lot of a lot a lot of John's education and 1:23:00.040 --> 1:23:04.000 oakness and right now he's a soldier. Yes, it was 1:23:04.000 --> 1:23:08.080 was acquired and learned. 1:23:07.560 --> 1:23:10.360 At University of pen No, dude, right now. 1:23:10.360 --> 1:23:12.960 John, I'm not cutting John down at all. I was 1:23:12.960 --> 1:23:13.479 just saying that you. 1:23:14.080 --> 1:23:16.800 Created the toxicity that's happening right now with a lot 1:23:16.840 --> 1:23:22.439 of my heroes and hip hop. Yeah, John Legend is yeah, 1:23:23.040 --> 1:23:25.360 he trust me, he's frontline. 1:23:26.520 --> 1:23:30.000 Yeah. I was like, yo, we gotta get somehow get down. 1:23:31.439 --> 1:23:32.400 But I'm very. 1:23:32.200 --> 1:23:36.400 Happy as somebody who is from Philly who grew up 1:23:36.479 --> 1:23:40.040 on the roots, and there was just there was nothing 1:23:40.360 --> 1:23:44.160 better than that. And shout out to Derek Dudley, who's 1:23:44.200 --> 1:23:47.080 the person who actually introduced me to Sean, and he 1:23:47.200 --> 1:23:49.400 was like done, I got you. Sean came to the 1:23:49.439 --> 1:23:52.160 office watch and he's like, yeah, yeah, we need to 1:23:52.200 --> 1:23:56.360 do this, and it was just it's just been nothing 1:23:56.439 --> 1:23:58.120 but love the entire time. 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:01.519 And I got it. I got admit that this was 1:24:03.400 --> 1:24:10.479 probably the perfect platform. Sean couldn't have been happier to 1:24:10.560 --> 1:24:16.360 have made this happen, because, you know, we had we 1:24:16.400 --> 1:24:20.439 had a passing of like our manager, Richard Nichols was 1:24:20.520 --> 1:24:23.479 like you know, he was he was like our fifth Beatle, 1:24:24.520 --> 1:24:27.640 and when he passed away in twenty fourteen, the Lukema 1:24:28.920 --> 1:24:31.800 it was kind of an unspoken thing, even though I 1:24:31.840 --> 1:24:34.799 never believed it in my heart. It was sort of like, well, 1:24:35.160 --> 1:24:38.160 I guess we're not going to make records anymore. And 1:24:38.360 --> 1:24:41.320 you know, I spent a lot of time since you know, 1:24:41.479 --> 1:24:46.400 late twenty thirteen, early twenty fourteen, thinking of, you know, 1:24:46.479 --> 1:24:48.160 other ways to be creative, and that's when I like 1:24:48.240 --> 1:24:51.200 started writing a lot of books and doing like a 1:24:51.240 --> 1:24:54.320 lot of other things besides making like any excuse to 1:24:54.360 --> 1:24:57.800 not make an album. So you know, I couldn't, I 1:24:57.840 --> 1:25:01.880 couldn't think of a better way, uh, for us to 1:25:01.880 --> 1:25:06.599 get back in the studio six years, seven years after 1:25:06.760 --> 1:25:11.080 having not created anything inside of the studio with each 1:25:11.120 --> 1:25:15.599 other than this project. So you know, again, I thank 1:25:15.600 --> 1:25:18.960 you both because this, like once we started this, then 1:25:19.000 --> 1:25:26.080 this really just unleashed a flooding. You know, we're subsequently 1:25:26.160 --> 1:25:27.920 working on three records right now. 1:25:28.120 --> 1:25:30.760 So well, thank you, Mike. 1:25:31.840 --> 1:25:33.360 Yeah, that's what I said, you too. 1:25:34.760 --> 1:25:36.760 I am very happy to have played. 1:25:42.080 --> 1:25:42.679 From the far. 1:25:42.800 --> 1:25:46.680 Yeah, absolutely, I'll take it. I'm putting that in my bio. 1:25:48.400 --> 1:25:48.720 Like that. 1:25:51.479 --> 1:25:53.080 You can, I can. 1:25:53.200 --> 1:25:55.880 But I can't wait for the world to actually hear 1:25:55.920 --> 1:25:56.840 the tracks. 1:25:56.800 --> 1:25:58.600 Because I don't know what I'm talking about. 1:25:58.320 --> 1:26:00.800 Because nobody's heard of me. And so you can hear 1:26:00.880 --> 1:26:03.880 him the trailer, you can hear one of the instrumentals, 1:26:03.880 --> 1:26:06.599 and then one of the things, one of the songs afterward, 1:26:06.680 --> 1:26:10.719 which is just fire and Tarik. So there's this line. 1:26:10.880 --> 1:26:13.240 First time I heard it, I just it stuck with 1:26:13.280 --> 1:26:15.960 me so much. And what he says is every time 1:26:16.040 --> 1:26:18.400 I fight, the reason I fight is to not fight again. 1:26:19.360 --> 1:26:22.920 And yes, somebody who grew up in Philly fighting, you 1:26:22.960 --> 1:26:25.120 don't fight because you want to fight, I gues that's 1:26:25.120 --> 1:26:27.439 not what it's about. And so he just captured it 1:26:27.520 --> 1:26:31.479 so succinctly. And to understand what Mike's doing, what we're 1:26:31.520 --> 1:26:33.320 doing in this movement, it's not about fighting for the 1:26:33.360 --> 1:26:35.839 sake of fighting. We want to fight to get things 1:26:35.920 --> 1:26:39.439 into a better place for us but also for kids. 1:26:39.840 --> 1:26:44.840 And so the music is just it's fire. So I 1:26:44.880 --> 1:26:49.000 cannot wait for people to actually hear all of the tracks, 1:26:49.000 --> 1:26:50.840 the whole ep, and it's just. 1:26:52.479 --> 1:26:56.160 I gotta say that, you know, for a lot of 1:26:57.720 --> 1:26:58.559 for a lot of them. 1:26:58.600 --> 1:27:00.880 I never said the Roots Army before in my life, 1:27:00.920 --> 1:27:03.320 but I guess I'll see now at a lot of 1:27:04.479 --> 1:27:07.880 people that have history with the roots, you know, for 1:27:07.960 --> 1:27:11.880 the longest they they've put us under. You know this, 1:27:13.280 --> 1:27:17.800 I guess, you know, socially conscious or political rap thing, 1:27:18.160 --> 1:27:21.200 which you know I used to joke a lot and 1:27:21.240 --> 1:27:24.360 say like, well, okay, I know we're politically correct, but 1:27:25.800 --> 1:27:28.280 you know, just because you know we aren't cutting keys 1:27:28.320 --> 1:27:31.720 and drug deal in our songs doesn't necessarily sarily mean 1:27:31.720 --> 1:27:35.880 that we're a political group per se. And then there 1:27:35.920 --> 1:27:38.040 became a point when we were like thirty five, like 1:27:38.120 --> 1:27:41.760 all right, someone's gonna call us out one day and 1:27:41.840 --> 1:27:44.240 realize that we're not as political as we were. So, 1:27:44.360 --> 1:27:48.599 you know, a lot a lot of our post two 1:27:48.640 --> 1:27:51.640 thousand and eight material, especially you know the time in 1:27:51.640 --> 1:27:53.599 two thousand and eight when the murder rate in Philly 1:27:53.720 --> 1:27:57.680 was astounding and we were under what we thought was 1:27:57.720 --> 1:28:01.680 the worst presidency of all time with a Bush. You know, 1:28:01.720 --> 1:28:03.479 it's like, okay, well, we can only go for so 1:28:03.640 --> 1:28:07.559 long talking about you know, how how diggity dope our 1:28:07.640 --> 1:28:11.360 stickity styles are in riggity rapping, and so you know, 1:28:11.360 --> 1:28:12.920 we kind of had this streak of like the last 1:28:12.960 --> 1:28:16.639 four albums of like these like dark political records, which 1:28:16.880 --> 1:28:19.479 I don't think was performative at all, but really like 1:28:19.640 --> 1:28:22.080 represented where we were at the time, because you know, 1:28:22.880 --> 1:28:24.840 you can't turn your back on no matter like how 1:28:24.920 --> 1:28:27.240 much success you have, like you still have a cousin, 1:28:27.800 --> 1:28:30.880 like you might the same with your fight, Like okay, great, 1:28:30.880 --> 1:28:32.599 you got your parents out, but you know there's more 1:28:32.680 --> 1:28:35.880 fight to go you know, I kind of thought that 1:28:35.960 --> 1:28:38.400 we were going to close the chapter on the darkness 1:28:38.439 --> 1:28:43.439 of roots albums with our last album and then you 1:28:43.439 --> 1:28:47.600 shoot your cousin basically because that was the album that 1:28:47.640 --> 1:28:51.120 we were making as our manager and co producer Rich 1:28:51.240 --> 1:28:54.880 was dying. So if anything, that album was more of 1:28:55.200 --> 1:28:58.920 our very dark goodbye to him. So I'd sort of 1:28:58.920 --> 1:29:02.040 forgive roots fans for like, that's way too dark for me. 1:29:02.120 --> 1:29:03.840 I can't take this shit. But you know, if you 1:29:03.920 --> 1:29:06.920 knew Rich, that was like the perfect send off. So 1:29:06.960 --> 1:29:10.639 the thing was in my mind, I thought, Okay, well 1:29:10.680 --> 1:29:14.360 we are gonna I'm gonna shock the world and just 1:29:14.520 --> 1:29:18.120 return to the first four records, like the Sunday Afternoon 1:29:18.200 --> 1:29:22.519 House Cleaning Roots album that everyone wants us to do. 1:29:23.720 --> 1:29:26.680 But we're living in you know, this time now and. 1:29:27.040 --> 1:29:30.400 You know, since twenty sixteen and utter Madness in the 1:29:30.479 --> 1:29:34.200 upside Down, and I was like, yo, man, it's not 1:29:34.280 --> 1:29:36.360 time to make a lighthearted record like we got one, 1:29:36.400 --> 1:29:38.400 more like this is our chance to make our statements. 1:29:38.439 --> 1:29:42.559 So if anything, I feel like this this album really 1:29:42.600 --> 1:29:46.559 puts in context of what the last five albums have 1:29:46.640 --> 1:29:49.640 been about. So yeah, I'm excited for people to hear it, 1:29:51.120 --> 1:29:53.080 you know, and again we're making three records, so this 1:29:53.160 --> 1:29:58.080 is this is just one of three of us unpaid 1:29:58.080 --> 1:30:01.960 bill What do you think? Oh no, I'm babe bills 1:30:01.960 --> 1:30:06.599 on Sesame Street. This is Sugar Steve. Wait, damn sugar Steve. Yeah, 1:30:06.720 --> 1:30:08.960 you know, I'm just I'm just here together for sure, 1:30:09.240 --> 1:30:10.559 report back to white people. 1:30:10.640 --> 1:30:15.200 So he said. 1:30:15.000 --> 1:30:18.200 That he did, he did? 1:30:19.160 --> 1:30:19.599 How long? 1:30:19.800 --> 1:30:22.000 How long did it take for the I'm sorry to 1:30:22.000 --> 1:30:25.800 extend the sorry I didn't know. 1:30:25.800 --> 1:30:28.599 Steve has lived with this project enough because he's engineered 1:30:28.600 --> 1:30:29.719 the record for us, So. 1:30:31.920 --> 1:30:34.360 I mean I haven't I haven't seen the documentary in full. 1:30:34.479 --> 1:30:39.600 But uh, my one question was how long did it 1:30:39.600 --> 1:30:42.400 take for you to make this this documentary from start 1:30:42.439 --> 1:30:42.880 to finish? 1:30:43.560 --> 1:30:47.559 It took about three and a half years until about 1:30:47.800 --> 1:30:50.280 two and a half years or so of shooting and 1:30:50.360 --> 1:30:51.759 about a year of editing. 1:30:52.760 --> 1:30:54.679 I haven't a fully archival question. 1:30:55.360 --> 1:30:59.599 Once again, yes, also because of what I'm working on 1:30:59.680 --> 1:31:03.920 right now now, I just discovered did you use any 1:31:03.960 --> 1:31:05.320 of the archival footage? 1:31:06.479 --> 1:31:06.599 Uh? 1:31:06.640 --> 1:31:11.640 Do you know of this woman in Philadelphia whom I 1:31:11.640 --> 1:31:14.599 guess her backstory is that she did not trust the government. 1:31:14.840 --> 1:31:18.160 I actually thought she was down with move. She did 1:31:18.200 --> 1:31:21.640 not trust the government, a Philadelphia woman. And what she 1:31:21.720 --> 1:31:28.240 did was she purchased five Beta Max machines. Yes, and 1:31:28.280 --> 1:31:31.800 she obsessively, she obsessively recorded. 1:31:32.200 --> 1:31:36.680 The problem it was I found I came across her, 1:31:36.720 --> 1:31:39.200 I saw an article and I looked her up. The 1:31:39.360 --> 1:31:44.880 problem was her recording started I think four months after this, 1:31:45.520 --> 1:31:52.320 and so she recorded everything. She has this incredible database 1:31:52.720 --> 1:31:56.639 of everything that happened. It was insane. 1:31:56.880 --> 1:32:00.320 But we think, think of think of a put she 1:32:00.320 --> 1:32:02.320 would have. She would have been a perfect fit for 1:32:02.320 --> 1:32:06.400 a quest Love Supreme, like she was a pop culture hoarder. 1:32:06.760 --> 1:32:09.040 Like she recorded. She recorded. 1:32:09.160 --> 1:32:10.559 I don't know how she I don't know if she 1:32:10.600 --> 1:32:14.560 had a job or anything, but she literally recorded whatever 1:32:14.960 --> 1:32:16.360 was on television. 1:32:17.479 --> 1:32:20.360 What thirty seven years in a row? 1:32:20.840 --> 1:32:22.280 Yes, I believe that was. 1:32:22.600 --> 1:32:25.320 She started what seventy seven I think. 1:32:25.280 --> 1:32:27.439 I think it was sometime in seventy eight. 1:32:28.160 --> 1:32:31.439 Okay, yeah, she got five Beta Max machines. Said I 1:32:31.479 --> 1:32:34.439 don't trust the government, so I'm gonna record everything on 1:32:34.600 --> 1:32:39.599 NBC ABC. So she brought five VC, five Beta maxes, 1:32:39.920 --> 1:32:41.839 and five televisions. 1:32:41.520 --> 1:32:44.479 And all she did was she would change tapes every 1:32:44.920 --> 1:32:51.360 four hours like clockwork. Is insane, but like over not help. 1:32:52.479 --> 1:32:56.519 I think like four thousand tapes at the end of 1:32:56.560 --> 1:33:00.120 the day. So yeah, I wanted to know if you use. 1:33:00.080 --> 1:33:04.639 Then honestly, if we start actually talking about our travel process, 1:33:04.920 --> 1:33:05.559 we'll be here for. 1:33:05.520 --> 1:33:08.080 Another for process. I'm sorry. 1:33:09.680 --> 1:33:11.519 The name of the film, do you who do you 1:33:11.520 --> 1:33:12.800 think it's referring to? 1:33:13.800 --> 1:33:16.560 I assumed that it was about Mike, because. 1:33:20.000 --> 1:33:22.719 So see, that's the thing where some people will be like, oh, yeah, 1:33:22.840 --> 1:33:28.599 it's it's it's parents, his parents, and like, no, it's 1:33:28.760 --> 1:33:32.120 it's Mike. Oh it's Mike. It's Mike. And if you 1:33:32.439 --> 1:33:33.120 and a mirror. 1:33:32.880 --> 1:33:37.280 God, because he's he's a yes exactly. 1:33:37.920 --> 1:33:41.160 And and his dad is the one who really brings 1:33:41.160 --> 1:33:43.639 that home in the end where he talks about us 1:33:43.680 --> 1:33:47.800 being home freed him and it took the burden off 1:33:47.800 --> 1:33:50.439 of him so he could actually live his life. 1:33:51.120 --> 1:33:53.120 That's funny about that. I never knew my dad felt 1:33:53.120 --> 1:33:54.759 that way until I saw that interview. 1:33:56.400 --> 1:34:00.120 Again, when we have a question of supreme we think 1:34:00.120 --> 1:34:04.040 you Mike, God, Africa Junior and Tommy Oliver for joining 1:34:04.120 --> 1:34:08.080 us on behalf of Fontigelow and Unpaid Bill and Sugar, 1:34:08.120 --> 1:34:12.519 Steve and Layah and Philadelphia. 1:34:11.960 --> 1:34:15.320 Zone from Melis Avenue, Quest Love. This is Quest Love 1:34:15.400 --> 1:34:18.160 Supreme signing off. We will see you on the next program. 1:34:18.320 --> 1:34:21.000 Thank you yo. 1:34:21.120 --> 1:34:22.280 What's up? This is Fante. 1:34:22.600 --> 1:34:24.840 Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at 1:34:24.920 --> 1:34:26.920 QLs and let us know what you think and. 1:34:26.840 --> 1:34:28.360 Who should be next to sit down with us. 1:34:28.600 --> 1:34:31.719 Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast all right peace. 1:34:40.080 --> 1:34:42.960 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 1:34:45.600 --> 1:34:48.880 For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 1:34:49.080 --> 1:34:52.480 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.