Speaker 1: This week on the latest episode of The Big Show,
Speaker 1: we have one special guest this week as we launch
Speaker 1: into our light Reel film Festival coverage. Stay tuned and
Speaker 1: find out who this brother is. We'll have all that
Speaker 1: and more, plus reviews of Havoc and Charles.
Speaker 2: What's the other one called? Fight?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That one.
Speaker 1: All of that coming up on the latest episode of
Speaker 1: Keeping It Real with Film Gordon. Let's go good afternoon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the latest episode of Keeping It with Film Gordon.
Speaker 1: I am Tim Gordon, and I am joined by the
Speaker 1: one the Only.
Speaker 2: Charles Kirkland Junior. Charles, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Bro?
Speaker 2: Good ee?
Speaker 3: Teams to you all, and welcome to the new Pope
Speaker 3: from Chicago. Congratulations Neo.
Speaker 1: First of all, if you was gonna do that, shouldn't
Speaker 1: it have been like a Chicago accident.
Speaker 3: No, that was.
Speaker 2: The Pope. But he's from Chicago.
Speaker 3: He's from Chicago, but he spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: in Peru and other places.
Speaker 1: So first of all, I was in sensed that somebody,
Speaker 1: somebody else made the moment about them.
Speaker 2: We are so proud of you. Oh my god man.
Speaker 3: Nobody cares about that for real, Okay, I cared about
Speaker 3: it you're focusing on anyway, man, we haven't. That's American, now,
Speaker 3: how about that.
Speaker 1: I'm not never mind, I'm not I'm not Catholic anyway
Speaker 1: in mind, but you know, yeah, anyway, we got a
Speaker 1: big show today. Man, we got a couple of movie reviews.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about having a.
Speaker 2: Little later on.
Speaker 1: Just so unnecessary, so unnecessary.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Look when I saw the film, said you got to
Speaker 3: see this thing.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Shane, so unnecessary, didn't We'll talk about it later on.
Speaker 3: And then it's Fight and Flight is sister film to
Speaker 3: have it.
Speaker 1: I'll just say, okay, cool, so stick around for that
Speaker 1: because we're gonna definitely have some fun with these films
Speaker 1: later on. But now, we got the light Reel Film
Speaker 1: Festival coming up, man on June the fourth through the seventh, right,
Speaker 1: And you know you hear about us talking about this
Speaker 1: all the time, Man, we this week because you know,
Speaker 1: by the time you guys are listening to us, tickets
Speaker 1: have been released so you can go to light Real
Speaker 1: Film Fest, I mean light Reel Film excuse me, dot
Speaker 1: com that's brutal and pick up your tickets.
Speaker 2: But the next.
Speaker 1: Several weeks leading to the festival, Charles and I have
Speaker 1: sat down and decided that we need to bring in
Speaker 1: some of the filmmakers whose films will be gracing the festival.
Speaker 1: And we are starting off with a brother that I
Speaker 1: literally met. We've known each other what about six months? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was about six months mat At a party, Brother
Speaker 1: told me, hey, man, I'm finishing this movie.
Speaker 2: I was like, I got this festival, let's make a deal.
Speaker 1: Months later, brother said, the film and I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: telling the audience the same thing I told him. I
Speaker 1: was ten minutes in, called my significant over over to
Speaker 1: watch what I was watching over. Yeah, that what I
Speaker 1: just said, y'all know what I'm talking about. I do
Speaker 1: this And she was like, I said, yeah, we're playing this.
Speaker 1: We screened this film, and that's got us to where
Speaker 1: we are today. The brother, Now do I introduce you
Speaker 1: by your moniker or your government?
Speaker 3: It depends on what you talking about. But I say that,
Speaker 3: I say to Monica, he is priest. No. No.
Speaker 2: But what I've done is I used both.
Speaker 1: Both. I do the first name and then put the
Speaker 1: Monica in the middle, you know, like that.
Speaker 2: Priest. The nomad is.
Speaker 3: In the building. Thank you for having me man.
Speaker 1: Bra Brah, I was the weird though not just is
Speaker 1: select an official selection at the festival, but it's an
Speaker 1: official selection.
Speaker 2: Charles, that's a spotlight. That's the anchor the Friday night
Speaker 2: line up.
Speaker 1: There's a huge honor, Bro, a huge honor and and
Speaker 1: wats this and deservedly so appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm humbled, grateful, a lot of Workman, years in
Speaker 3: the making, years in the making, a lifetime in the making.
Speaker 3: This is your story, I mean, and it's DC and
Speaker 3: it's high lighting you as a rap artist growing up
Speaker 3: here in d C. And ho and go go man,
Speaker 3: and it's a high the focus of the film. But
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about what it was like. I mean,
Speaker 3: you said I was the weirdough but we find out
Speaker 3: that you were just a weirdo in the scheme of things.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny because to toiled with that title for
Speaker 3: like we were the widows I wasn't you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, because it was it was a whole community
Speaker 3: of us coming to find out later. But I didn't
Speaker 3: find that out till later, right, So for a long
Speaker 3: time you were it was like me, I was the
Speaker 3: widow right, because I was surrounded by other dudes that
Speaker 3: was into other things that you know, and we all
Speaker 3: went to Look, man, I love Go Go music. I
Speaker 3: love our culture. I love that. You know, we've created
Speaker 3: our own genre of a subgenre of music. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. We're a live band area and all that, man,
Speaker 3: but you know we're also a transient area. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. There's a lot of people that come
Speaker 3: to the nation's capital and it's surround the areas.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm born in Northeast and and Britwood, but
Speaker 3: I grew up you know what I'm saying. I mean
Speaker 3: I moved to Rigs Park and then I grew up.
Speaker 3: A lot of my formative years was in Belsville, Maryland, right,
Speaker 3: and in Hyttesville, Maryland, and then came back to the
Speaker 3: city and everything. But so just but when we started
Speaker 3: doing I was doing stuff in high school and you know,
Speaker 3: you find a kid or two or something, you know,
Speaker 3: you do it and everything, but you know, for real,
Speaker 3: they you know, when it came time to really do
Speaker 3: it in front of people, everybody was like, nah, nah,
Speaker 3: don't we don't do that. But we don't do that.
Speaker 3: So I was, and I was proud about it, like
Speaker 3: I was always about hip hop. I love you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Uh, it spoke to me. The culture
Speaker 3: spoke to me. You know what I'm saying. I was
Speaker 3: a dancer, B boy, and so I'm saying, M saying
Speaker 3: like that, started doing stuff and then you know, jumped
Speaker 3: on the club scene sneaking out of high school. And
Speaker 3: that's when I really got into the city and got
Speaker 3: and got into the club scene as a dancer, and
Speaker 3: then that kind of brought the rhyme thing back. So
Speaker 3: you know, even though I went you know, DC, Maryland
Speaker 3: all that, but everything that we did was in the city,
Speaker 3: right There was no scene in Maryland or I mean
Speaker 3: everybody came to the city. So everything that we brick
Speaker 3: laid was in the city right, So between the clubs,
Speaker 3: between U Street and all that.
Speaker 1: So so so my question is and I and I
Speaker 1: sort of kind of understand that, you know.
Speaker 2: The art grips you the way the art grips you.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out growing up in this area
Speaker 1: where go go is so prevalent. Like I moved here
Speaker 1: in eighty five and knew nothing about the scene, and
Speaker 1: here I am now four decades later. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the go go scene, like you are immersed
Speaker 1: and I don't know how old you are, I assume
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm a proud fifty two brother about the
Speaker 1: term fifty three By the time June first is the birthday.
Speaker 3: Man, it's fly gym and out. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: young man? Know what I'm saying. So I think fifty three,
Speaker 3: young man, I wear that with pride. Man, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Saying in this area, old priest, you know, go go
Speaker 1: It is not just the home ago you know, Chuck
Speaker 1: and he you and backyard like, so you're immersed in
Speaker 1: the go go culture. How what what spoke to you
Speaker 1: that gripped you and said, you know, go go is cool?
Speaker 3: But man, this this hip hop, well like I loved
Speaker 3: both man, I mean we went to go gos. I
Speaker 3: mean my my, my era growing up in the eighties,
Speaker 3: man was you know, was the the you know, the
Speaker 3: course is Chuck at S S and EU and all
Speaker 3: them right and then but you know, my my one
Speaker 3: of my heroes was Heartbeat, uh and his you know,
Speaker 3: central groove back in the day that in fact they
Speaker 3: was out in Maryland, went around my way, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So I kind of with dudes. Was
Speaker 3: the dudes that we could touch, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: So shut out the heartbeat and the congo all that stuff. Man.
Speaker 3: So like him and his brother Rick God God rests
Speaker 3: did man. He they was peoples that we could touch
Speaker 3: and we would go see them and another. But but
Speaker 3: also what was happening at the same time was Frank
Speaker 3: ski Uh was here and he had a show at
Speaker 3: w d c U on ninety point one called Breaker's
Speaker 3: Delight and that was in the eighties and was in
Speaker 3: the mid eighties. So I'm like, you know, junior high
Speaker 3: and then coming into high school eighty six eighty five,
Speaker 3: like peeping that. And that's what introduced me to really
Speaker 3: really all the hip hop culture in the groups, because
Speaker 3: that's when I learned about Cold Crushing Flash and hur
Speaker 3: Can you know Run DMC and all that. And then
Speaker 3: you know, them tape started coming down, right, you know,
Speaker 3: you recording them shows and rocks Sand and then was
Speaker 3: dudes from here that was doing on those shows. Because
Speaker 3: my man who wound up being one of my crew
Speaker 3: members from Man sub Z he was with a group
Speaker 3: called Dynamically Fresh that they had a video at the
Speaker 3: Capitol and like eighty five, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 3: and then there was stuff down you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It was the bray Burn Building and all that stuff, right,
Speaker 3: all of that stuff was going on. B boys in
Speaker 3: F Street. They was breaking down F Street and you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Back in the day, you know,
Speaker 3: this is when junk Yard used to be down there.
Speaker 3: So it was like so it was like you know,
Speaker 3: and then and one of the things I talked about
Speaker 3: in the Doctor is that there was a meschine of
Speaker 3: go go and hip hop from the early days. And
Speaker 3: this is one of the reasons why. It's because a
Speaker 3: lot of the breakbeats that the early pioneers of hip hop,
Speaker 3: Grandmaster Flash and Hurking them when they used those were
Speaker 3: DC funk bands, you know what I'm saying, Skull Snaps,
Speaker 3: Chuck Brown, Soul Searches, that's where the pay the full
Speaker 3: beat comes in, I'm from. So a lot of those
Speaker 3: they learned about DC bands, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: through the breakbeats, and so they started you know, playing
Speaker 3: those breaks and everything, and then starting to collaborate.
Speaker 2: And so you saw on the Die and then herbing U.
Speaker 3: And even I mentioned that, but even before that, it
Speaker 3: was EU and Curtis blow party time, right, you got
Speaker 3: you got that, you got then you got dropped the
Speaker 3: bomb with Melle Mellon and did it because trumple was
Speaker 3: on sugar Hill, you know what I'm saying. Record. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So and then remember Jump was on death Cham. M
Speaker 3: junk Yard was on death Cham.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at the world.
Speaker 3: Saw these a poking beans and the word on the
Speaker 3: flip side that was a death Cham recking.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were definitely the fact they was in a
Speaker 3: movie tougher than Lever. I remember them being in that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's why they was an ass because they were on
Speaker 3: Death Chair. I'm saying Rick Ruben helped produce that. He
Speaker 3: helped produce you know what I'm saying. He put the
Speaker 3: production you know, like to you know format right the go,
Speaker 3: go to make it, you know, fit the format. But yeah,
Speaker 3: he was behind the word and you know, like kind
Speaker 3: of blending with them on on that like officially. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: the word and saw these a poking beans. I was
Speaker 3: that was on death Chat. I had heard rumors about
Speaker 3: the DC hip hop culture. But by the time I
Speaker 3: mean eighty six I graduated, I'm gone to Baltimore because
Speaker 3: that's where I could really touch my hip hop. But
Speaker 3: and like you said, I grew up loving Go Go.
Speaker 3: I heard it all the time, but I didn't get
Speaker 3: it developed my love for hip hop here in the city.
Speaker 3: I had to go north. But there was another culture
Speaker 3: that was happening, and you touched on it a little bit,
Speaker 3: the singers in the in the jazz culture that was
Speaker 3: also growing in DC that I'd like to talk about
Speaker 3: that some I mean, somebody needs to talk about that
Speaker 3: as well. But it all started coming out of that
Speaker 3: U Street corridor that you're talking about. The jazz. The
Speaker 3: jazz is one of the foundations of the city. I
Speaker 3: mean you talk about Duke Ellington, Yeah, I mean Duke
Speaker 3: Allingxon is here. You know what I'm saying. You know, Uh,
Speaker 3: one of the things I talk about old U Street,
Speaker 3: the the you know when after post reconstruction and out
Speaker 3: of the blacks. So DC was one of the areas
Speaker 3: man with the most freed slaves, right right, So we
Speaker 3: had empowerment of slaves, they had upper echelons of skilled
Speaker 3: laborers here. They built that that that George Washington purposely
Speaker 3: blown here literally to build the city, right, to build
Speaker 3: the capital, to build the White House. So that a
Speaker 3: lot of them was able to obtain their freedoms and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So what happens is you got a
Speaker 3: whole But they was cool because Maryland and Virginia were
Speaker 3: the slave states, right, so they had the district where
Speaker 3: a lot of the blacks were happened to be free
Speaker 3: and they could buy their freedom, more so because it
Speaker 3: wasn't a big agriculture area, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So because of that, then you had but the segregation
Speaker 3: was hard, right, So a lot of all of those
Speaker 3: prominent blacks then took those skills to U Street and
Speaker 3: you have the corridor black businesses that all established, and
Speaker 3: they were doing so many business, but all of them
Speaker 3: had to speak easies, right. You know. That's where crystal
Speaker 3: caverns didn't later be through, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So it was all of these, a whole bunch of them,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Around the corridor. You had
Speaker 3: Maryland was a Mary Cliver Thorne, I think it was
Speaker 3: on Vermont, and you know it was so many people.
Speaker 3: But you know you had the cab Callaways and Duke
Speaker 3: Ellington's and Miles and all of them. So the jazz
Speaker 3: is rich, you know what I'm saying. That that's always
Speaker 3: been and so that whole that whole thing, and it
Speaker 3: is a great history of jazz, I mean with you
Speaker 3: know the Howard Theater and the Lincoln Theater, you know,
Speaker 3: Crystal Caverns and you know all of that.
Speaker 2: So look, it's funny we had And.
Speaker 3: That's that's the thing about this doc for me, man,
Speaker 3: because like I went into it just trying to document
Speaker 3: our resurgence because we were the resurgence of U Street.
Speaker 3: That's why the story is very valuable because when people
Speaker 3: think about U Street, they think about the original U Street, right,
Speaker 3: think about Duke and and and you know and Billy
Speaker 3: and yeah, Billy coming Black Broadway right exactly. But they
Speaker 3: don't understand what happened after the crack era. But happened
Speaker 3: after the riots and then the Crack era came and
Speaker 3: U Street was rough, you know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 3: was rough, right, And it was the it was the
Speaker 3: starting to revitalize that they had the plans to build
Speaker 3: the Metro U Street Cardoza. Right before they built that,
Speaker 3: it was rough, and it was the little cafe owners
Speaker 3: that were started to opening up their shops trying to
Speaker 3: get who gentrified. Who's the first to, unfortunately pave the
Speaker 3: way for gentrification is always artists. We're always the first
Speaker 3: to be the first level of gentrification because we're the
Speaker 3: ones who are from these and we from these neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: We don't care. We just wound trying to do our
Speaker 3: art right. So we go to these places. We're just
Speaker 3: doing art. I mean, we're pulling I'm a freestyle union,
Speaker 3: were pulling dudes off the streets to rock may put
Speaker 3: the things in the car. Man come round, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. We're doing that type of stuff. We're
Speaker 3: not tripping off that. So we come and do that.
Speaker 3: And then what happens is white people come because they
Speaker 3: see the art right, and then they're like, oh my good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: And then we were doing this and because we going,
Speaker 3: we we've touched dudes in the neighborhoods or whatever. It's
Speaker 3: a safe, safe space. We build them. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. My man Cocaine talks about that on The Doctor.
Speaker 3: We built that safe space and then they become comfortable.
Speaker 3: They start becoming comfortable you already know. Yeah, the next
Speaker 3: step is y'all got to go. We're like, we're gonna
Speaker 3: start buying it, and that's what happened. And then you
Speaker 3: have let's get rid of Go go music. You can't God,
Speaker 3: So that worked out. No, what I was about to
Speaker 3: say before you know the city.
Speaker 1: You know, what I'm saying is that it's funny as
Speaker 1: an outsider, right like Charles grew up here, You grew
Speaker 1: up here.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying I'm an outsider who's been here long enough.
Speaker 1: I would never claim DC like I'm a native. I'm
Speaker 1: not a native. I'm just a guy that understands the
Speaker 1: culture stories people come here thirty forty years. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: but you But but there's a difference between being native
Speaker 1: born and being a person who's immersed in the.
Speaker 2: City and understands it. Because when I first came here,
Speaker 2: I felt like an alien. I would look around, you know,
Speaker 2: people were talking about the love of the of the
Speaker 2: mayor then Marion Barry and all of the stuff that
Speaker 2: was going on in the music in the.
Speaker 1: I can't even say it, like, but being in the
Speaker 1: being around this energy, all these black people. That was
Speaker 1: the first thing I noticed when I moved here, because
Speaker 1: in the middle in the eighties, this really was Chocolate
Speaker 1: City and yeah, man so but but I remember listening
Speaker 1: to Go Go early in the game, and I had
Speaker 1: I had knowledge of Go Go from like Trouble. I
Speaker 1: remember Pumped Me Up came out of like eighty two
Speaker 1: I think it was, and I remember going, man, that's
Speaker 1: different and not you know what I'm saying, because nobody
Speaker 1: knew what Go.
Speaker 3: Go A lot of times that break that that that
Speaker 3: break beat has been used.
Speaker 2: In hip hop.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean, like, yeah, gracious man like
Speaker 3: and you know, and that's the Mallard did over like
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 1: I still I still think to me to this day
Speaker 1: that that is one of the most amazing Go Go
Speaker 1: songs ever. Man Like, I'm like, how And then I
Speaker 1: saw him play it like I think it might have
Speaker 1: been on Soul Train.
Speaker 2: They showed up and did a version.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's gotta be one of the most difficult
Speaker 1: songs to play because you think of all that percussion.
Speaker 4: That's in that song for that amount of time.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, there's no there's no stammin of like
Speaker 3: go Go drummers. I was gonna say, the reason why
Speaker 3: it's called go go is because you just keep going,
Speaker 3: you go go stamming of the stand backs by I
Speaker 3: mean they all all Man. The industry comes here and
Speaker 3: pulls musicians like crazy from here because of that. There's
Speaker 3: a story with I think Quest Love on his probably
Speaker 3: he was talking about my man was telling me that,
Speaker 3: you know the Quest Love was I was talking to somebody.
Speaker 3: It was a big rock group and I can't remember
Speaker 3: the group, but they were like they had to have
Speaker 3: two drummers on tour with them, and they were like,
Speaker 3: why you got two drummers on tour. It was like, well,
Speaker 3: we have to show us three hours. They was like,
Speaker 3: you know, we have to do an intermission, so we
Speaker 3: have to use one drummer for the first time. The
Speaker 3: show number said maybe you need to go to d
Speaker 3: C and pull one of them go Go drummers, And
Speaker 3: it was like and then they sold question. I think
Speaker 3: quest I started. Quest took him to a go Go
Speaker 3: I think he took him to so it was a EU.
Speaker 3: Probably might have been Juju or somebody like. It was
Speaker 3: somebody like that, and they wind up grabbing them and
Speaker 3: put them on tour. They was like, yeah, they go
Speaker 3: all night. You know what I'm saying about it to you?
Speaker 3: Going to the gotart man, they hitting all nights. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like so there's nothing like you know, hey, look they sipping,
Speaker 3: they doing whatever, They drinking whatever, drink with other one.
Speaker 3: You just keep going.
Speaker 1: Man, we in here with Prieston, No man, man, no
Speaker 1: mask dot.
Speaker 2: I was the weirdough is playing.
Speaker 1: Friday, June sixth U seven point thirty over at the
Speaker 1: Angelical pop up Theater at Union Market. Man, I'm really
Speaker 1: all joking aside, and you and I have had this conversation,
Speaker 1: so I'm just repeating to you or to the audience
Speaker 1: what I repeated to you. You know, when we came
Speaker 1: up and conceived this film festival, and Charles has worked
Speaker 1: with me on it, like every year we've done it right.
Speaker 1: And when we first started, Charles I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I just thought it was a cool idea.
Speaker 2: Man, we'll get some films together. Man, we show some films.
Speaker 1: But you understand as it grows the impact that it's
Speaker 1: a platform, right, So it's not about us, it's a
Speaker 1: about you, It's about young filmmakers. It's about burden and
Speaker 1: filmmakers established ones all coming together.
Speaker 2: To create their art.
Speaker 1: But what makes this year and my estimation is so
Speaker 1: special is we've had local films before. I don't think
Speaker 1: we've had the quality of local films that we've had
Speaker 1: this year. Right, So we're talking about film, we're talking
Speaker 1: about a film that we're gonna be talking about our
Speaker 1: opening night class reunions, which is which is another one.
Speaker 2: We got screenplays from local artists from about the Go
Speaker 2: Go what is it called the Go.
Speaker 1: Go, the Go Go, I can't remember, but we had
Speaker 1: a screenplay that's a go Go district, the Go Go district, Right,
Speaker 1: So that was one of the things I leaned into,
Speaker 1: and I think I shared this with you two priests,
Speaker 1: is that we show films. Like last year we had
Speaker 1: film filmmakers that came from like England, Canada and Germany
Speaker 1: and other spots, which is cool. But I want this.
Speaker 2: Thing also balance out and be for the right.
Speaker 1: I want it to be folks who are creators that
Speaker 1: are here to use our festival as a platform in
Speaker 1: a way, and no disrespect to any other festival in
Speaker 1: the market, man, but I'm just saying that's that's our
Speaker 1: sort of mandate for what we're trying to.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you how important that is. Man. We're
Speaker 3: in a city, man that's unlike any other city in
Speaker 3: the work, and everybody comes here and takes from us.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. You have people, and I say,
Speaker 3: it's a heavy transit area. People come here and go
Speaker 3: to school, they come here for business opportunities, They come
Speaker 3: here because of the politics whatever. They come here. And
Speaker 3: because of the politics and because of the lack of statehood, right,
Speaker 3: you got people, you got congressional favors and things like
Speaker 3: that that they're creating businesses from people that are not
Speaker 3: from here that are creating And it's like, how does
Speaker 3: business pop up?
Speaker 1: Hoo?
Speaker 3: Are these people all of a sudden they in the
Speaker 3: forefront of stuff, They running stuff, they gatekeeping, they doing
Speaker 3: all of this stuff, man, And then they bring in
Speaker 3: they people and then they just you know, you this
Speaker 3: has been the story of my life, man. That's why
Speaker 3: you know a lot of my stuff is under ground.
Speaker 3: I had to create my own movements because there's so
Speaker 3: many gatekeepers that are not from here, and then people
Speaker 3: that are from here that just getting get in the
Speaker 3: bag and getting the check, and then and capitulating to
Speaker 3: that right and not staying true to a purpose of
Speaker 3: Hey man, we have to really really shine the light
Speaker 3: on the excellence in here, because then that's why so
Speaker 3: many people leave here. The people that are from here
Speaker 3: that are doing big do big things, they go somewhere else, right,
Speaker 3: and they're more appreciated than that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I you know, I'm not in a space, you know,
Speaker 3: and a lot of part of my life where I
Speaker 3: can do that, you know what I'm saying. I got
Speaker 3: a lot of responsibilities. I care giving my mother, and
Speaker 3: all that time, I was like, man, plus, somebody has
Speaker 3: to be here, somebody has to be home and hold
Speaker 3: it down. So when people come here, they know, oh no,
Speaker 3: you got to go holler or you got to go
Speaker 3: holler at these people or these cats over here that's
Speaker 3: doing this or whatever. And you know, and I make
Speaker 3: sure that I stay tapped in, try to tap in
Speaker 3: with a number of different areas and arenas of art here.
Speaker 3: Like you know, it's jazz. I got ass casts. I'm
Speaker 3: doing stuff with University really University of Maryland Jazz Ensemble,
Speaker 3: Big band Jazz. I've been hitting with them. We just
Speaker 3: did UDC Jazz Festival, mid Atlantic Jazz Festival. I'm I'm
Speaker 3: a feature MC with them like I'm doing, you know,
Speaker 3: going making sure. If I need to go to the
Speaker 3: go go seeing, I'll go tap my man killer Cal
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. The essays, I'd be like Cayle,
Speaker 3: I need to roll with you. He'll take me. You know,
Speaker 3: we go hit fast at these and we go hit
Speaker 3: somewhere you know where essence is at, and then you
Speaker 3: know there's other things that's happening. I try to stay
Speaker 3: tapped in the you know, local cast, different artists that
Speaker 3: are not from the U street scene. PI can kill
Speaker 3: a corn and other people that are doing their thing.
Speaker 3: I try to stay tapped in because we are so
Speaker 3: much and that's my gem and I personality right, multiple sides, right,
Speaker 3: I try. I see the value in each side. So
Speaker 3: I always try to stay tapped in and so that
Speaker 3: I know people from all different types of arenas. You
Speaker 3: see how hard it is to walk and black kids.
Speaker 2: Studio.
Speaker 3: You know from all walks, and it's about giving love
Speaker 3: and staying truth. One thing about this city we respect
Speaker 3: the real without regardless of what you are, you better
Speaker 3: be real about it. Because you're gonna get your card pool,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So my thing is real
Speaker 3: love and it ain't situational love. It's like, I really
Speaker 3: love humans, man, you know what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 3: think that's missing, right, that humanity. Right, So I take
Speaker 3: an l if you if you got some messed up
Speaker 3: energy or whatever, I'm gonna let you. I'm gonna let
Speaker 3: God deal with that stuff, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna give you love, right, and it ain't
Speaker 3: gonna stop my movement. I'm always gonna have a movement,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So I can walk into
Speaker 3: any room and not look over my shoulder, and I
Speaker 3: think that's one of the fabrics of being here that
Speaker 3: you know, did things like make me walk out on
Speaker 3: Quincy Jones? Yeah, wait wait wait, wait hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 3: you gotta tell me that we're not gonna tell that
Speaker 3: story in the film that's in it not so walk
Speaker 3: watch the film and see that.
Speaker 2: Yes he did, because I look, but it's who it is. Man.
Speaker 3: We ain't on no sucker time. Man. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: you be what you about and if you try to
Speaker 3: make things work, but I'm not going to sell out
Speaker 3: who I am for something that I don't really believe
Speaker 3: is pushing the needle. That's dope, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And I'm just like that, I'm just not that dude.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's a respect, it's a love. But
Speaker 3: like I'm staying over what I stand and I'm so
Speaker 3: glad that I did that now because that's part of
Speaker 3: my legacy.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you know, exactly so.
Speaker 3: And I love the fact I do a show every
Speaker 3: every month where I get to sit down with filmmakers
Speaker 3: who are doing it right here and give them the
Speaker 3: love that they need to hear for doing stuff here.
Speaker 3: I mean again, like you said, they have the opportunity,
Speaker 3: the option to go anywhere Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, wherever,
Speaker 3: but I give them props for staying here and giving
Speaker 3: back to our community. And so it's it's so important,
Speaker 3: I think for our film festival to start highlighting those stories,
Speaker 3: highlighting your story and other stories that are happening that
Speaker 3: are hit ours, and I hope people start coming out
Speaker 3: and understanding that this is our festival that we need
Speaker 3: to support it as well. And I know you got
Speaker 3: your fans and your friends are gonna come out. But
Speaker 3: I want everyone to hear this story. This is a
Speaker 3: little I mean, just like just like a second ago
Speaker 3: I would happened. I would I would love for you know,
Speaker 3: seventy percent of the audience for me not know them, right,
Speaker 3: that would be great, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So I definitely want to get this out.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately that's not gonna happen. The whole audience coming.
Speaker 3: Well, we need to get another we might have to
Speaker 3: open up another showing.
Speaker 1: We had a conversation around that and uh yeah, so
Speaker 1: well we don't see how it plays out.
Speaker 2: We'll see how it plays out.
Speaker 3: Hey, look man, we you know, look, you know, you
Speaker 3: know in the promotion game, and gotta over promote because
Speaker 3: you know, some are always coming up with people. People
Speaker 3: are a thousand people, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we come up, we coming out.
Speaker 3: And then twenty people out of that thousand, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So that that's why you got to
Speaker 3: promote to fifty thousand so you can get like five,
Speaker 3: five hundred or three hundred.
Speaker 2: I'm just fascinated, bruh.
Speaker 1: And you know, because I was prepared for us to
Speaker 1: have a conversation and to be around the film. But
Speaker 1: to Charles's point, the film is your life. So you
Speaker 1: know this first film, right, first ever?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So and I heard I heard him speaking of that,
Speaker 3: and I'm talking to shout out to my cinematography, my man,
Speaker 3: Craig Kilgore and who was in a film group and
Speaker 3: all that, and supposedly the thing is to make shorts,
Speaker 3: film shorts and stuff to do that before you do
Speaker 3: a full feature film. And they were like, yeah, so
Speaker 3: we didn't really discover that, like ignorance is bliinch. So
Speaker 3: it was like, I was like, man, because I remember
Speaker 3: we didn't I didn't have any timeframe for the doc.
Speaker 3: I was just like I got all of this stuff
Speaker 3: to talk about. I got thirty in views, and I
Speaker 3: got all of this footage. I digitized two bags of
Speaker 3: VHS tapes from shows and ciphers and things that we've
Speaker 3: been doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm just like, I don't this ain't gonna
Speaker 3: fit in uh in a thirty minute where you could
Speaker 3: have had to scale it down to eighty two minutes
Speaker 3: like it could have it could be a series literally,
Speaker 3: because I just so much stuff that I didn't use,
Speaker 3: so and I want to try to do some type
Speaker 3: of series because every interview was like an hour plus.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're talking about DJ Cool, You're talking about
Speaker 3: Tannahose Coats, You're talking about Camilla Forbes who runs the
Speaker 3: Apollo Theater, like, you know, nonchalant, like all.
Speaker 2: Of these people. How all these people connected?
Speaker 3: That's d C right, that would bring chat you know,
Speaker 3: chap here to how with them and Stinky Deck all
Speaker 3: in the same you know what I'm saying, Like, how
Speaker 3: does that work? Right?
Speaker 2: As d C?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out because I saw that I
Speaker 3: saw time heat in the in the in the in
Speaker 3: the show, Like, how did you not get involved with
Speaker 3: Black Panther?
Speaker 2: You knew, Chad? You knew?
Speaker 3: I mean because I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 3: but t was the one that was the one who
Speaker 3: set the blueprint for Black Panther as we know he was.
Speaker 3: He wrote the comic. The comic, he wrote the yeah,
Speaker 3: the latest edition. I mean I was created by Stanley
Speaker 3: and Jack Kirby. But Coats is the one who created
Speaker 3: the vision that we see that Coogler put on the screen.
Speaker 3: And so just to see I mean, it's amazing the
Speaker 3: connections that you have. I mean, Chad and Coats and
Speaker 3: so many other people. It's just a fantastic video.
Speaker 1: How do you get from Chad to Bi to biz Markey,
Speaker 1: I'm confused with that the other way around.
Speaker 3: Start the other way again and this and see the
Speaker 3: the I'm not really a self self absorbed dude, right,
Speaker 3: So I didn't. It was a big I really tried
Speaker 3: to not not make this about me, and I was
Speaker 3: trying to. But my thing is my story is the glue, right,
Speaker 3: So my my I've connected to so many things into
Speaker 3: so many arenas and generate like everybody's thinking. Everybody thinks
Speaker 3: I went to Howard University. I did not go to
Speaker 3: Oward University. Everybody like, I hear people hitting me like yo,
Speaker 3: ain't you you know? I'm like, yeah, you know, that's fammy,
Speaker 3: that's family. But I didn't go there, Like you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. But Maryland, huh Maryland, No, No, I
Speaker 3: didn't go I went to I went to a year
Speaker 3: of at Hampton. I went to a year Hampton, like
Speaker 3: ninety one ninety two. But it just didn't fit for me,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. It was cool, I messing
Speaker 3: real grade people down there. I danced down there and everything,
Speaker 3: but I couldn't you know, couldn't go back and all that.
Speaker 3: So it was a blit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And I didn't go straight from high school like I
Speaker 3: was on the club scene and I went down there.
Speaker 3: A lot of people knew me from the club scene
Speaker 3: in DC because everybody came to DC to party right
Speaker 3: going to the rints. They was going to the chapter
Speaker 3: three of Memory Roger and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing. It's like I haven't been, but
Speaker 3: I've been. I've been involved in generations of art at Howard.
Speaker 3: So the early stuff in the early the mid nineties
Speaker 3: was the era of my man Young Guru and Tracy
Speaker 3: Lee and them and and and all that stuff in
Speaker 3: Power Move and doing a cultural initiative, hip hop conferences
Speaker 3: and all that type of stuff. Well, my man Tim
Speaker 3: Jones and all of that that was that arena and right,
Speaker 3: and then after that comes and that's d Dot and
Speaker 3: all of them in Puff you know like before like
Speaker 3: right after that, and then after that is the era
Speaker 3: of you know, Camella and Chad and and then Tynahsee
Speaker 3: come comes later. So they're younger than me, right, but
Speaker 3: I'm involved in all that because I'm U Street and
Speaker 3: a lot of them casts came down U Street to
Speaker 3: do stuff. So every time we're doing something, we wind
Speaker 3: up being back out. I was dancing for somebody Howard
Speaker 3: Steph Lover you know my sis stuff love it was
Speaker 3: and I was one of her dances. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. I talked about that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I didn't know that was in ninety two ninety three.
Speaker 3: Men this other dude who went to Howard and we
Speaker 3: used to rehearse at Howard, right, and so everything that
Speaker 3: we did, all the clubs in Uptown, the you know
Speaker 3: the clubhouse, Bomb Shelter, all of them places, right, So
Speaker 3: it's the dancing part. And then it was rhyme. Men
Speaker 3: coming to the yard to rhyme. That was freestyle and
Speaker 3: I'm battling, so I was always up there. And then
Speaker 3: it was hip hop theater, right, which is Chad and
Speaker 3: all of So I got pulled to do that because
Speaker 3: I was just always in the mix, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, Always at Cramp and always at our Altist theater,
Speaker 3: like always doing stuff. So everybody and people and people
Speaker 3: were just like yo grad priest grad priest grad priest
Speaker 3: and and That's why I said, man like this at
Speaker 3: some point with this dog, hope we give I hope
Speaker 3: I can get an honorary degree to be involved in
Speaker 3: the educational things re a that joint because I'm just
Speaker 3: so involved in generations of art there. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: Felicia Rashad was just doing Breakfast Club talking about you know,
Speaker 3: hip hop theater and Chad and how that started at Howard,
Speaker 3: you know, and so it's you know.
Speaker 1: Does anybody did anybody have any clue about this guy
Speaker 1: man like I'm talking about?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 4: Did anybody else see how about Chad and go?
Speaker 2: He could be special?
Speaker 3: Chad was always he was well, you know, and again
Speaker 3: we weren't real tight. You know. It was a cat
Speaker 3: that I met through the theater process. But he was
Speaker 3: real tight with some of my other younger brothers in
Speaker 3: the Freestyle Union. They had a group called Human Profits
Speaker 3: and a man Jabari and them. But they they brought
Speaker 3: me like they him and Camilla came and sought me
Speaker 3: to come to the Dude the hip hop theater. Ron
Speaker 3: deferred piece with them because I was doing a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff at that time. I think Tanna Hose had
Speaker 3: did a cover story article on us at the City
Speaker 3: Paper in the Atlantic and then too right, No, no,
Speaker 3: he worked at the Atlantic. He worked at he was
Speaker 3: at the Washington City Paper though, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: When he was he was doing school right and everything,
Speaker 3: and then stuff for the Washington Post. So we were everywhere.
Speaker 3: So they came and got me, and that's how I
Speaker 3: met chatting them, you know what I'm saying. So, but
Speaker 3: Chad was always he was always him like the same
Speaker 3: cat that he remained. That dude. He's very spiritual, very humble,
Speaker 3: very about his craft and and just you know, real
Speaker 3: grateful and that I think that's the what I'm most
Speaker 3: proud about with him is that through his whole career,
Speaker 3: even to the last movie he was in when he
Speaker 3: was battling cancer and having to I know a number
Speaker 3: of different actors and stars that were in movies, they
Speaker 3: you know, even Violetta Davis was like, h Viola Davis
Speaker 3: was like that. They were kind of thought that he
Speaker 3: was acting like uh, you know, big and stuff because
Speaker 3: he was getting all of the special care and he
Speaker 3: just kept rub but you know, and how bad they
Speaker 3: felt after learning that he was battling cancer and literally
Speaker 3: dying and doing his art and not mentioning to anyone
Speaker 3: like that's a pedigree, that's a cloth, that's a that's
Speaker 3: a you know what I'm saying, Like that's a thing,
Speaker 3: and that stuff like that is what motivates me and
Speaker 3: influences me the most. It's the why you do it
Speaker 3: and how you go back. Do you do it for
Speaker 3: something bigger than you do you do it for the ancestors.
Speaker 3: Do you do it for the community and for the people.
Speaker 3: That's why I never waiver. That's why I'm never on
Speaker 3: those sucker time because it's for the people. And I'm
Speaker 3: looking at these youngins that are eight and nine, and
Speaker 3: they looking at stuff because they can't see themselves right
Speaker 3: in greatness, So they out here robbing dudes and pulling
Speaker 3: up the yns and all that type of stuff because
Speaker 3: they can't see you, feel me. So anything that we
Speaker 3: can do to help these young and see through this
Speaker 3: crazy system that we're all trying to navigate, it's our
Speaker 3: responsibility to shine that light and to try to be
Speaker 3: that and then give them a time when they come
Speaker 3: to a story yard, give them that time. You feel me? Wow, Now,
Speaker 3: that's why he's called priest. I'm just sitting there like
Speaker 3: this look that I'm passionate and I'm passionate. I'm just passionate,
Speaker 3: but like I really am, I'm just passionate about purpose.
Speaker 1: So we got we got about ten minutes priests Biz Marquie.
Speaker 2: Here's a brother.
Speaker 1: We had a good friend of mine who's the hip
Speaker 1: hop artist Empty Chill out of Cleveland, and he and
Speaker 1: I have had long conversations with him and Biz we're
Speaker 1: kind of tight, right, So it was at dude another dude,
Speaker 1: man who was here?
Speaker 2: I saw? I ran into Biz one time and Booie,
Speaker 2: I was like, was here the longest?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because when it because I was saying
Speaker 1: I was telling somebody jokingly because it's me instead of saying, hey.
Speaker 2: Man, like your music. I w was like, what you're
Speaker 2: doing here?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: So talk about talk about some time with bis man.
Speaker 3: With times that I can talk about on it. NA Man,
Speaker 3: that's big bro. Man. Look, you know I talk about
Speaker 3: this in the dock and how we met and everything.
Speaker 3: I met as a dancer, but literally me rhyming with
Speaker 3: Biz got me really taking rhyming seriously because before that
Speaker 3: I was a dancer, right and black in ninety two so,
Speaker 3: but how we got connected was I was I'm part
Speaker 3: part of this crew called house Nation that we should have.
Speaker 3: We should be dancers. You know. That's another thing that
Speaker 3: we talked about the sub genre of a sub scene
Speaker 3: of house music. Here shout out Sam the Man Burns
Speaker 3: and rest in Peace and all that. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like house music is here Baltimore and everything. Man,
Speaker 3: but it's it's you know, we we go back and forth,
Speaker 3: but we want to on a club scene. And we
Speaker 3: had a crew called house Nation and Tone was apart
Speaker 3: of that. So Tones on the dock, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And uh so we did that and that's
Speaker 3: how his god wound up becoming his manager in Monty
Speaker 3: a la mout Wanza. It was part of the House
Speaker 3: Nation and so they wind up starting to throw parties.
Speaker 3: He was part of that era of Ronda burying them
Speaker 3: and they started do the rents and the clubs and
Speaker 3: stuff like that and throwing parties. And they started doing
Speaker 3: parties with Bis and because Biz started DJing around that time,
Speaker 3: and it just happened to coincide. And then you know,
Speaker 3: SOI Biz loved the way Moncie was dealing. So they
Speaker 3: started started managining Monsky was managing me. He started like, Yo,
Speaker 3: I think you need to really start like rapping, because
Speaker 3: I was just I was ciphering and rapping so much.
Speaker 3: After the clubs and stuff. He was like, who's the
Speaker 3: dancing dude dancing? But every time I come out to
Speaker 3: the club, they be ciphering. I'm like, oh, snapped to
Speaker 3: jump in. I start baling, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So people just knew that. I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: rhym and so that's how we linked up. And we
Speaker 3: didn't wind up linking up. When they did a party
Speaker 3: with him down University of Virginia. Shout out, Kenny Johnson
Speaker 3: down there, who was doing that? And that's how I
Speaker 3: got the audio of us freestyling. Kenny and Slam gave
Speaker 3: us that audio, Yeah, of us freestyling going, you know, rhyming.
Speaker 3: Batting is not battle, but just rhyming at the party.
Speaker 3: And then after that business like, yo, man, you got skills.
Speaker 3: He's like, yo, you got scales, but you need to
Speaker 3: lessen though. I got some things to tell him that
Speaker 3: type of thing, and so yeah, we just kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, and then we separated because they started doing
Speaker 3: their thing and I'm finding. But later on when I
Speaker 3: became an engineer, I started working with him again as
Speaker 3: an engineer and that so then that's when we reconnected,
Speaker 3: right and I started I was recording a lot of
Speaker 3: his stuff for Yo Gabba Gabba when he was doing
Speaker 3: that that that that show, and then when later stuff
Speaker 3: that he did like on Bumpy Knuckles album and stuff
Speaker 3: I recorded and Bowie actually yeah, yeah, studio a little
Speaker 3: freelance studio I was having down there.
Speaker 2: So nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, so I was kind of just,
Speaker 3: you know, it was one of those things we've always
Speaker 3: connected periodically type of thing. But but yeah, but he
Speaker 3: was very influential. Increase is the glue. The one thing
Speaker 3: I want to ask you. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 3: you really covered much in the in the in the movie.
Speaker 3: You you're a hip hop guy. You you you celebrate
Speaker 3: the the the excellence of the rhyming and being great
Speaker 3: in what you're doing. The culture kind of changed when
Speaker 3: n w A and some of these other people started
Speaker 3: coming in. Can you talk about how that affected you
Speaker 3: as a as a performer or the industry, how the
Speaker 3: change in the industry, what that did. I like to
Speaker 3: differentiate that industry versus culture, right right, So you know,
Speaker 3: and then what was the question, how did how did it.
Speaker 1: Affected come in more prominent than the conscious music that
Speaker 1: was out.
Speaker 3: I heard more stuff, you know what I mean, But
Speaker 3: it didn't affect me because I was pretty much locked
Speaker 3: into what I was locked into, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: At that time, you're talking what mid to mid to
Speaker 3: late nineties, late too late nineties. But when when DC
Speaker 3: guys started listening to rapping, they wanted to represent the
Speaker 3: West Coast and scarface and yeah, yeah, so again this
Speaker 3: is some doc stuff, but you know, d C had
Speaker 3: a d C had a thing with New York hip hop.
Speaker 3: They had against New York kipp and again that that
Speaker 3: goes back to some street stuff, you know, and drugs
Speaker 3: and all that. So I think that just became the lens.
Speaker 3: And even when dudes didn't realize that that was the
Speaker 3: reason they they you know, people that wasn't even in
Speaker 3: the streets. They were just like, it just became a thing. Oh,
Speaker 3: you're doing the New York Bama stuff. That's that New
Speaker 3: York Bama stuff. And even when dudes started getting into
Speaker 3: hip hop, it was like, you know, ghetto boys with scarface,
Speaker 3: it was you know, in those casts out you know,
Speaker 3: rock and with go go bands, so it was n
Speaker 3: W A cop is most wanted, you know, and things
Speaker 3: like Devin the Dude, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 3: that that type of stuff. So yeah, so there was
Speaker 3: just always that connection. And of course there's a big
Speaker 3: down south, you know, a connection here and in DC
Speaker 3: a lot of people you know, connection from the South,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So you know, my folks
Speaker 3: from you know, grandparents from North Carolina on my mother's side,
Speaker 3: South Carolina my father's side, So there's that thing too.
Speaker 3: But there was a thing undercurrent about New York hip hop,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, and that was that was
Speaker 3: influencing me because I love boom Back and I love
Speaker 3: because the boom Back was the soul because of the samples,
Speaker 3: it was the breaks. It was the learning about Donald
Speaker 3: Bird and learning about you know, uh, you know, the
Speaker 3: Ron Carter and jazz Grats and stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: learning about people and even tribe called Quests dude who
Speaker 3: sampled other outside of you know, soul and then you
Speaker 3: know different crazy you know, uh folk folk music and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. That's just shows you how far hip
Speaker 3: hop can go. So it really didn't affect me. I
Speaker 3: was locked in. But what I did learned, I learned
Speaker 3: about it. Hip hop spread out right, and you started
Speaker 3: because you saw the skill level because a lot of
Speaker 3: those cats were fans of the culture and New York
Speaker 3: hip hop. I mean, iced T is connected to you know,
Speaker 3: to that you know, like a lot of the early
Speaker 3: because a lot of a lot of that stuff. New
Speaker 3: York was the start, right, so every area had that
Speaker 3: lens and those influences. So you had people that really
Speaker 3: took the craft of rhymen seriously from every city that
Speaker 3: they was there. So that's to me, that's what it
Speaker 3: was about. It was about the craft, even if you
Speaker 3: regardless of the subject matter, right, I could appreciate the craft.
Speaker 3: So I could be a fan of some some gangster
Speaker 3: because you know them n W Wait records and especially
Speaker 3: ice Cube's first record, America's most was a knockball outis
Speaker 3: like you know what I'm saying, And you had to
Speaker 3: get past the subject matter. But like on some hip
Speaker 3: hop he's doing with the Bomb Squad, but you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Yeah, with the productions, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, So like shocking and keep shocking, like come on,
Speaker 3: So I think when you ahead, when you're a hip
Speaker 3: hop head, you you you look at the difference, right,
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, they on this type of time. Okay,
Speaker 3: but what what what the rhymes looking like? What the
Speaker 3: beats looking like? So I think that's from us who
Speaker 3: do it? That's kind of the less we have, you know.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna ask you, man, like for the
Speaker 1: audience is coming out man to watch the movie. But
Speaker 1: I guess the last the last forty five minutes, you've
Speaker 1: set up the movie for people to come out of
Speaker 1: watch that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's funny because the questions come and
Speaker 3: the doctor dresses it, does you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like literally, That's why that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: I had to make it that left, because there was
Speaker 3: so much connection and it was it was a thing
Speaker 3: of discovery. Like the the more I went into just
Speaker 3: trying to document stuff, you realize what connects to what
Speaker 3: and you're like, Dad, well I can't just let that go.
Speaker 3: I need to speak on that and I need to
Speaker 3: do it. And that's how I started like putting, really
Speaker 3: putting the piece of pieces together. And because different what
Speaker 3: I realized is that different eras different years of my
Speaker 3: story connected to different things that were going on at
Speaker 3: that time. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, because it
Speaker 3: was the early nineties, mid nineties, late nineties, early two thousands,
Speaker 3: and then going to you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 3: I appreciate that about the film, is that you give
Speaker 3: that background that was what's happening so sidly that that
Speaker 3: influences you that you city under sea stuff like you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, what I didn't know this stuff
Speaker 3: was going on because I discovered this is barbershop talk
Speaker 3: right talking about the you know, Alpo and New York
Speaker 3: hustlers coming down here when Ray Felin then was down here,
Speaker 3: like all of that stuff was like you just had
Speaker 3: to know. I didn't. You know, I didn't know because
Speaker 3: I wasn't on the streets, like I wasn't on you know,
Speaker 3: I knew people who did it, but you know, I
Speaker 3: definitely didn't. So I discovered later. Okay, that was me
Speaker 3: understand Oh so this oh yeah, oh yes with Frey
Speaker 3: and oh okay, then you start learning stuff and then
Speaker 3: you start connecting the dots. Well, this is why I
Speaker 3: was getting this type of clock back when I was doing,
Speaker 3: Oh this is what year? Yeah? Wow, I started putting
Speaker 3: it together. Then I'm like, okay, so it makes sense
Speaker 3: for me to tell the story and connect scenes that
Speaker 3: were happening at that timeline to give that lens.
Speaker 1: Right. So you were talking about the New York d
Speaker 1: C piece is funny. I was watching a video the
Speaker 1: other day, a Cameron right, and he was telling the
Speaker 1: story of how when they were making Paid in Full,
Speaker 1: how Dame put a scene in there that he didn't
Speaker 1: want to do because he was like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you remember the film when he goes, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I ain't gonna tell on.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna tell on, and he wound up coming
Speaker 1: down he is later and getting shot behind that for real,
Speaker 1: Like that's a movie, this real life, but there's real
Speaker 1: beef in the streets man, when you're talking about these
Speaker 1: two cities.
Speaker 3: And you know, and it just I mean me not
Speaker 3: being in it, but discovering. I mean, our post name
Speaker 3: is is trash here man. So I mean like, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know when it comes to DC, because you know
Speaker 3: he rather you know that that that whole thing that
Speaker 3: it went down, So it's like anything that's a sensitive thing,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and like I said, I'm
Speaker 3: not in it. I don't know you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But when you mentioned that to d C dudes, when
Speaker 3: you you know cast that was and even today you
Speaker 3: mentioned that, I can't tell that, they go, it's right,
Speaker 3: this is that you know. I'm like, okay, yeah, but
Speaker 3: it's the same way with anyone. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But yeah, So I just I just really discovered a
Speaker 3: lot of that.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: So well, bro, look.
Speaker 2: We can have this conversation for a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: But again the other thing, now, you will you want
Speaker 1: to announce that Doubt announced the newest development now or
Speaker 1: she should we just wait? You're talking about what we
Speaker 1: talked about, because we already gonna have the film. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing the Q and A with you, a
Speaker 1: post film Q and A. But I think there's another
Speaker 1: talk you're gonna be doing pre film.
Speaker 3: Oh you're talking about the Yeah, you want.
Speaker 2: To tell them, you know?
Speaker 1: All right, So as I said, the film is going
Speaker 1: to premiere, you're laughing.
Speaker 2: We talked, I know what you're talking about. Now we
Speaker 2: ain't talking about that.
Speaker 1: But your film, of course is gonna is gonna premiere
Speaker 1: on at seven thirty on Friday, June the sixth, Right,
Speaker 1: So there's gonna be a post Q and A hosted
Speaker 1: by one of the hosts here at d C Radio,
Speaker 1: Troy Pinkney, who's one of the co hosts of the
Speaker 1: Hip Hop Morritors. So he's gonna he's gonna sit down
Speaker 1: with you after the film for the audience in the theater.
Speaker 1: But prior to the film being screened, we've set up
Speaker 1: another talk, a half hour talk that we're gonna do
Speaker 1: which hasn't been made public and this is really the
Speaker 1: first time we're talking about it. That's gonna be over
Speaker 1: at Bertland over in Union Market prior to the film.
Speaker 1: So we still got to work out what time that's
Speaker 1: gonna be and then put that out on social media.
Speaker 3: But we give people to come. People that's in the
Speaker 3: festival or you know, come in and come early. Man,
Speaker 3: let's let's let's talk about Look.
Speaker 1: I want I want the people to get some I
Speaker 1: want I want them to get love to you.
Speaker 2: And I want you, yes, sir, sir bro. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to that, man, looking forward to you being
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Uh be read copy ready.
Speaker 3: Bro, i'ma be hip hop.
Speaker 1: Hang out hang out, man, we just gonna chop up
Speaker 1: two films real quick man. So Charles Kirkling man priest
Speaker 1: is in here, so you normally a little extra.
Speaker 2: I want you to tone it down.
Speaker 3: What so first, every time I tell you, every time
Speaker 3: we do that, people are like with something wrong with Charles?
Speaker 2: What's wrong with you? Just kind of low na man?
Speaker 2: So I think we're gonna start with you. Look like
Speaker 2: we're gonna start with yours first. What is it called flight?
Speaker 1: Up?
Speaker 3: Fight on?
Speaker 2: Fight? You got the description up?
Speaker 3: I do not? Oh, man, come on, he let me
Speaker 3: know when these jones are showing too, because I want
Speaker 3: to make sure this weekend I'm assuming okay, fight or Flight?
Speaker 3: This is a mercenary takes on the job of tracking
Speaker 3: down a target on a plane, but must protect her
Speaker 3: when they've been surrounded by people trying to kill both
Speaker 3: of them. Directed by James Madigan and stars Josh Hartnett
Speaker 3: and Sharitha Chandran and Katie Sakoff.
Speaker 2: So give us a breakdown, man, what's this movie about?
Speaker 3: When I saw this movie, I said, oh, this is
Speaker 3: just bullet bullet training on a plane. That's I mean, basically,
Speaker 3: that's all it is. I mean from the beginning of
Speaker 3: the movie, Josh Hartning is this washed out ex secret
Speaker 3: service guy who gets called into service to track down
Speaker 3: this person because the CIA has crapped the bed and
Speaker 3: they originally turning to him to save this person off
Speaker 3: of flight. Unbeknownst to him, everybody on the flight has
Speaker 3: Now I'll become aware that he's on this plane, and
Speaker 3: he's he's like persona non grata throughout the spy espionage world.
Speaker 3: So not only are they trying to capture the person
Speaker 3: that he's captured going to capture, but they're trying to
Speaker 3: kill him as well. So he's got to fight from
Speaker 3: the beginning of the plane right to the end of
Speaker 3: the plane, right just killing people and in creative ways.
Speaker 3: I can say that there's one scene where a chainsaw
Speaker 3: and how do you get a chainsaw on the plane?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but they explained it decently, I suppose
Speaker 3: in this film. So, uh, there's there's another scene in
Speaker 3: there where this one woman is fighting him and she
Speaker 3: engages with his manhood in a way that I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm very uncomfortable here, ultra violent, over the top, but
Speaker 3: it's a lot of fun. Let Yeah, this was Ultra
Speaker 3: Vivia too. This is a thing that we're having for
Speaker 3: the show Ultra viblet.
Speaker 2: Watch both of these.
Speaker 3: I watched both of them.
Speaker 2: You're sure you're gonna need some therapy?
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: Pretty much? Talking about it?
Speaker 3: So yeah, again, violent but fun and you know it's
Speaker 3: one of those just turn your brain off and then
Speaker 3: sit back and relax.
Speaker 1: All right, cool, cool, all right? So what you're gonna
Speaker 1: grade this thing? I give it a C plus plus.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: So that was that was violent? Huh, Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: as violent.
Speaker 2: Were about to talk about, all right.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, After a drug deal gone wrong, a
Speaker 1: bruise detective must fight his way through the criminal underworld
Speaker 1: to rescue a politician's a strange son, unraveling a deep
Speaker 1: web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnarees his entire city
Speaker 1: in havoc. This film starts Tom Hardy, Timothy Oliphant, far
Speaker 1: As Whittaker, A gang of people, man, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go first on this one. Okay, Now, Charles, if you
Speaker 1: if you listened to this podcast this fifteenth year we've
Speaker 1: been doing it, but Charles and I have been doing
Speaker 1: it about seven eight years now.
Speaker 4: If you listen to us every week. You know, we
Speaker 4: like violent movies.
Speaker 2: We love it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We were in Toronto a year ago and it was
Speaker 1: a movie called Kisch and were we in there at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 2: I believe we were. Yeah. We went the cheering like
Speaker 2: seven year old kids.
Speaker 1: Like whoa, No he didn't.
Speaker 2: So I'm look, look, I love violent films. And then
Speaker 2: this havoc.
Speaker 1: I watched this movie and let me tell you, I
Speaker 1: told you the plot of what it's about. So Tom
Speaker 1: Hardy is playing like this, this detective who is ensnared,
Speaker 1: you know with this, I guess he's the mayor of
Speaker 1: the town far as his character is the mayor, and
Speaker 1: his son is caught in a very uncompromising, very compromising position.
Speaker 1: I has to say that results in the depths of
Speaker 1: some people, right, So he's gotta go major people. So
Speaker 1: he is tasked to as a final favorite to the
Speaker 1: mayor go get my son, which.
Speaker 2: Leads to this generally save his life literally.
Speaker 1: And but let me just say this, man, for the record,
Speaker 1: I love violent movies.
Speaker 2: This movie is way too much. Bro. I was on
Speaker 2: the phone with Charles.
Speaker 1: We were talking about it before we came on the show,
Speaker 1: because I had to watch it in pieces right. So
Speaker 1: I would watch maybe twenty minutes and go, this is
Speaker 1: a lot. Man would turn this off and then he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, we got to talk about it, Dan.
Speaker 1: I go, okay, let me watch some more of it.
Speaker 1: I watch some more of it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, really, this is nothing, dude. There, okay.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of scenes in this thing right where
Speaker 1: the police are.
Speaker 2: Chasing some criminals in the truck.
Speaker 1: Right now, we've seen criminals being chased in Trusty about
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy and Beverly Hills cop wear truck tails in
Speaker 1: the city.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen a scene where they.
Speaker 1: Open up the back of the truck and throw washing
Speaker 1: machine full of coke into a police car, trapping police
Speaker 1: officer who was sitting there with coke fumes as he's dying.
Speaker 4: Like I said, what is going on? They are just
Speaker 4: it is just all truck.
Speaker 2: This is not a violent film. This is truck bruh. No,
Speaker 2: you do not. And you know what's funny. Here's and
Speaker 2: I should say this, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know whether washing machine full of that's just that's
Speaker 3: just one.
Speaker 2: That's just one scene and that's an opening. But no, no,
Speaker 2: but then this more but but you know it's funny, Charles.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had to watch an action film or
Speaker 1: a violent film where there are times where you just.
Speaker 2: Go, I just can't watch that.
Speaker 4: Have you ever had that happen?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I did. In this movie.
Speaker 4: I was like, whoa dude. I was on the phone
Speaker 4: with Charles and I watched.
Speaker 1: One of the killing scenes and I went, so unnecessary,
Speaker 1: there's no need.
Speaker 4: You don't have to shoot somebody through the throat or
Speaker 4: the cord that.
Speaker 3: Come on, man, it's just too much. Man. So for
Speaker 3: that reason, they got automatic weapons and they got to
Speaker 3: shoot somebody with the automatic weapon like eight times, right,
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: But you gotta go.
Speaker 1: So directed by Gareth evans Man who did Raid. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then the second Raid, Raid Redemption. I now, what's
Speaker 1: this in Raid? We don't need all those guns?
Speaker 2: We got one?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen Raid? What's this? Brook? I'm me
Speaker 2: tell you the other secret.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 2: I watched Raid Redemption before I saw RAD. I saw Ray,
Speaker 2: and so there was like.
Speaker 4: I went in there and went, man, that dude beat
Speaker 4: up like five hundred guys in that movie.
Speaker 3: Am I wrong? Like with his hands?
Speaker 2: No weapon? Five hundred dudes, easy, but no guns.
Speaker 1: So he was like, I guess Garret Eva was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can do the same thing with some guns, and
Speaker 1: boy doesn't. So that's my perspective. I just thought this
Speaker 1: movie was overly violent. Yeah, I agree, And what are
Speaker 1: you thinking?
Speaker 2: I agree?
Speaker 1: It is very violent, up violent, but it's fun. I
Speaker 1: thought it was fun. I thought it was you still
Speaker 1: got issues? You watch both these movies this week.
Speaker 3: I did literally almost back to back one day, and
Speaker 3: then the next day I saw this film and I
Speaker 3: called you up. I said you gotta watch this film, and.
Speaker 2: You were like, I don't know. And then you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: what you know?
Speaker 1: You know, here's another thing that if you don't talk
Speaker 1: to me all the time, charl soon say, you don't
Speaker 1: if you don't talk to me a lot, and Charles,
Speaker 1: I think this might play into it.
Speaker 2: I've been spend a.
Speaker 1: Lot of time watching classic movies on TCM, so I'm watching,
Speaker 1: you know, movies where it's kind of nice. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: watching classics, right and and and then I have to
Speaker 1: switch back and forth, so I got to put back
Speaker 1: on my current hat after I'm taking off my classic hat.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe you caught me in a moment
Speaker 1: where I was watching something sweet and.
Speaker 2: Kind and then you drop having on me and I
Speaker 2: would hey, you are doing too much.
Speaker 1: Off top, Oh my god. But no, So what would
Speaker 1: you give a grade for having? I gave Havoc a
Speaker 1: be minus. I really liked having.
Speaker 2: I gave Havoc an incomplete, man, because I think I
Speaker 2: watched the whole movie.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, bruh Okay, here's a great if I
Speaker 3: don't want it, like, there might be some folks in audience.
Speaker 1: Man, they can't do violence. Man, all right, So here's
Speaker 1: the great thing. Havoc is on Netflix. You can watch
Speaker 1: it right now. You should watch Havoc the Fight or
Speaker 1: fighters in theaters. You can watch it this weekend. It's whatever, man,
Speaker 1: all right. So as we tell you, because we gotta
Speaker 1: wrap this thing up. Man, if we tell you guys
Speaker 1: every week in closing, please watch something good of the movies.
Speaker 1: If you got a soft psyche, I wouldn't watch either
Speaker 1: of the movies.
Speaker 2: Just talk about it.
Speaker 3: I want to watch either one of those.
Speaker 2: Watch having it and holler at me and let me
Speaker 2: know what you.
Speaker 3: Psyche, non compliant?
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Oh and over half one more time? Man, giving it up?
Speaker 2: Man today for priests and no man.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming through, Man, Charles Kirkling. Man my ride
Speaker 1: a die Bro I'm sim Gordon. Man.
Speaker 2: We out Man. We'll see you guys next week. Man. Peace, Peace,