Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Omar Epps, Yelena Popovic & Reginald Akkeem Berry Sr. Discuss Authentic Storytelling Behind New Film 'Moses The Black’ + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Omar Epps, Yelena Popovic & Reginald Akkeem Berry Sr. Discuss Authentic Storytelling Behind New Film 'Moses The Black’ + More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Yes, it's the words More Dangerous Morning Show to Breakfast Club,
0:02
Speaker 1: charlamagea God justs hilarious. Dj Envy is out but Low
0:05
Speaker 1: and le Rossa is hair. And we got some special guests. Man,
0:07
Speaker 1: they are promoting the new movie Moses to Black. We
0:10
Speaker 1: got a Keen Barry Senior, Ya, Lena Popo Bitch and
0:14
Speaker 1: of course the legendary Oh my EPs.
0:15
Speaker 2: Good morning to all.
0:16
Speaker 3: Good morning.
0:18
Speaker 2: How you're feeling first and foremost good?
0:20
Speaker 4: Good, feeling very good?
0:22
Speaker 5: Nice?
0:23
Speaker 4: Thank you for having us.
0:24
Speaker 1: Happy, happy to have y'all man Moses to Black. Now,
0:26
Speaker 1: I know Moses was a real person. I did a
0:28
Speaker 1: little research. He was a fourth century saint, yeah right,
0:31
Speaker 1: whose journey went from like violence to deep spiritual transformation.
0:35
Speaker 2: Who was he?
0:37
Speaker 4: He was?
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Speaker 6: I think he was like the real Robin Hood because
0:41
Speaker 6: even when he was on his uh let's say, path
0:43
Speaker 6: of darkness, he was truly taking care of his community,
0:47
Speaker 6: you know, giving to the poor things of that nature.
0:49
Speaker 6: And he came to an impast in his life where
0:53
Speaker 6: he uh realized he had to become the change he
0:57
Speaker 6: was seeking, which is parallel to the character that I
1:00
Speaker 6: played Malik. He finds himself at a similar place. So
1:03
Speaker 6: the film explores those type of themes obviously in a
1:06
Speaker 6: contemporary setting, and.
1:10
Speaker 2: How do you translate that like real life arc into
1:15
Speaker 2: a modern crime drama.
1:16
Speaker 6: Well, that's that's Yolena who wrote the film beautifully.
1:20
Speaker 4: But you should speak to that. Yeah, well what can
1:25
Speaker 4: I just say? First? Was really drew me. I really
1:28
Speaker 4: fell in love with the saint because of his incredible
1:31
Speaker 4: courage and humility. I mean, this is the man who
1:37
Speaker 4: was all the way on one side, he was a
1:39
Speaker 4: notorious gang leader that was known for his brutal violence.
1:44
Speaker 4: People were fearing feared of him. And basically he not
1:48
Speaker 4: only abandons at the moment when you head the light
1:51
Speaker 4: within you know, not only that he abandons the ways,
1:56
Speaker 4: but he goes on this journey of a true freedom
2:00
Speaker 4: that achieves that the fruits that this true freedom wore
2:07
Speaker 4: through a lot of repentance and sketic work was this
2:12
Speaker 4: basically ability to face Martyr Thom with joy, and that
2:17
Speaker 4: to me was like, this was an incredible man. That
2:20
Speaker 4: heart must have been amazing even before his conversion, you know,
2:24
Speaker 4: to have that kind of courage to say I lived
2:27
Speaker 4: by the sword, now I'm going to die by the sword.
2:30
Speaker 4: And this is for me this is the way I
2:32
Speaker 4: want to go, and I want to glorify my Lord
2:34
Speaker 4: and Savior in that way. So this is something that
2:37
Speaker 4: really kind of grabbed me. So I thought about this
2:40
Speaker 4: for a long time, and I was trying to put
2:41
Speaker 4: the story together in a fourth century. But for some reason,
2:46
Speaker 4: whether you call it writer's block or whatever, something was
2:48
Speaker 4: not quite there. I felt like you wouldn't do justice
2:51
Speaker 4: to the same until I had epiphany. I was on
2:54
Speaker 4: an island of Evia and I saw literally Chicago Grandmother.
2:58
Speaker 4: I saw scenes of the movie in front of my eyes,
3:02
Speaker 4: and I and I said to myself and I no, no, no,
3:05
Speaker 4: And I said to myself, So I was I was sober,
3:11
Speaker 4: but maybe you're not sober when you're in the prayer.
3:13
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe that's the meditation, you know. So so what
3:17
Speaker 4: happens was like, you know, I said, Okay, now I
3:20
Speaker 4: have a movie. But then I was like, oh, great,
3:23
Speaker 4: but what do I know about Chicago and the gang life?
3:26
Speaker 4: And that's and that's where I knew that if I
3:29
Speaker 4: wanted to do the justice to this incredible saint, I
3:33
Speaker 4: had to go to Chicago, and by the providence of God,
3:36
Speaker 4: I believe I met this incredible gentleman Reginald king Berry,
3:41
Speaker 4: whom I went to respectfully to ask a blessing if
3:46
Speaker 4: I can make a movie like this, if this movie
3:48
Speaker 4: would help his community, and I can have him give
3:55
Speaker 4: you a little bit of a story of how that happened.
3:58
Speaker 4: I mean's without him this wouldn't have happened.
4:01
Speaker 7: Well, the facts of the matter is a great friend
4:05
Speaker 7: of man, Alex Pacios, who was the head of Center Space.
4:11
Speaker 7: She obviously had got in contact with him, and he
4:15
Speaker 7: told her if she really want the real deal, you know,
4:17
Speaker 7: to contact me and to be real with you. I
4:21
Speaker 7: was just going to have lunch just to be cordial
4:24
Speaker 7: and blow this white.
4:25
Speaker 8: Lady off.
4:31
Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 7: And so again during our lunch, you know, she has
4:35
Speaker 7: some some real interesting things to say. And when she
4:41
Speaker 7: mentioned that she wanted to get the essence of Chicago
4:44
Speaker 7: in the street life, you know, I thought that was
4:47
Speaker 7: a great opportunity also for me to speak about the
4:50
Speaker 7: street life.
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Speaker 8: You know, it's not just as easy as people put
4:53
Speaker 8: it out there.
4:54
Speaker 7: As guys wake up up one morning, you want to
4:56
Speaker 7: be a gang member, you want to says you want
4:58
Speaker 7: to get killed. That's not oh, you know, speaking from
5:01
Speaker 7: a purpose perspective, you know, I am a preacher's son,
5:05
Speaker 7: and so I was raised in the Baptist church, you know,
5:09
Speaker 7: to say that you don't need nothing material here. You
5:12
Speaker 7: know what I'm saying. You're gonna be in poverty until
5:14
Speaker 7: you're getting heaven. Then you're gonna have a street to go.
5:16
Speaker 7: I'm like, well, listen, my next door neighbor getting money
5:20
Speaker 7: and brand new shoes, and I got holes in the
5:23
Speaker 7: bottom of mind, you know, And she's a fight or
5:26
Speaker 7: flight you did, you know what I'm saying. So over
5:28
Speaker 7: the years, I rose to the ranks of the folk
5:30
Speaker 7: on the hustlers and became the chief for myself. And
5:34
Speaker 7: during that time right there again, we was what they
5:37
Speaker 7: called negro rich, you know. But when they come kicked
5:41
Speaker 7: that dough in, you know what I'm saying, All that
5:43
Speaker 7: money went to the lawyer, you understand me. And I
5:45
Speaker 7: got eighteen years in the penitentiary. And so while I
5:49
Speaker 7: was ruminating in the state's only supermacs called Tams, I
5:54
Speaker 7: had an epiphany. You know how I need to change
5:56
Speaker 7: my life because a whole lot of people. Now that
5:59
Speaker 7: I've risen to the top Chelina of this organization, perhaps
6:03
Speaker 7: I can introduce change and bring it back to where
6:05
Speaker 7: the founders had it when they was giving breakfast and
6:09
Speaker 7: daycare and that sort of thing, you know. And so
6:13
Speaker 7: when I was emancipated in two thousand and six, I
6:16
Speaker 7: started the organization called Saving Our Sons. And through those
6:21
Speaker 7: works there, you know what I'm saying, Me and Alex
6:23
Speaker 7: became like brothers from another mother. And you know, having
6:27
Speaker 7: met Elena, you know, we put some things down on
6:30
Speaker 7: paper and the rest is history.
6:33
Speaker 2: What was the turning point in the conversation with you, Elena?
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Speaker 1: Like, you know, you go in thinking I'm a blow
6:37
Speaker 1: blow this woman off, but that you having a conversation
6:39
Speaker 1: with her, Like, what was that one thing that made
6:41
Speaker 1: you just pivot a little bit?
6:43
Speaker 8: When she said she wanted to catch the real essence
6:46
Speaker 8: for the streets.
6:48
Speaker 7: And mentioned, you know, hearing homage to a great brother
6:53
Speaker 7: who I love, said, you know, the police put all
6:58
Speaker 7: types of madness on his name. When you talk about showing, uh,
7:04
Speaker 7: paying homage to him. You know, that was the thing
7:06
Speaker 7: that flipped me over.
7:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for you, Elena, when you talk about this,
7:10
Speaker 1: you know, the spiritual themes of Moses the Black but
7:13
Speaker 1: then Chicago being Chicago, how did you balance those elements?
7:16
Speaker 2: Sort of film felt authentic to both for us.
7:19
Speaker 4: Well, uh, I think I went after the truth, the
7:23
Speaker 4: hardcore truth of the things with the story, which I
7:27
Speaker 4: mean the story of Saint Moses the Black is pretty straightforward,
7:31
Speaker 4: and I didn't deviate from I feel that I that
7:33
Speaker 4: I showed what I wanted to show that on that side,
7:37
Speaker 4: but it was actually that's a good question, because that
7:39
Speaker 4: was the hardest one to balance because at the end,
7:42
Speaker 4: what I decided, if I was going to bring him
7:44
Speaker 4: in the modern day, then the repentance and redemption of
7:48
Speaker 4: Saint Moses had to become the repentance and redemption of
7:51
Speaker 4: our main character. So then I had to tell a
7:54
Speaker 4: story focus more on the story in the modern day,
7:58
Speaker 4: so through the eyes of our main character, people hopefully
8:01
Speaker 4: can identify with things and go through that transformation themselves.
8:06
Speaker 4: And this is really made for those that suffer the most,
8:10
Speaker 4: people that are in the bondies. They don't believe they
8:12
Speaker 4: can get out, they don't believe in that there is
8:15
Speaker 4: a second chance for them, They don't believe they can
8:18
Speaker 4: be forgiven, and this is a movie for those and
8:20
Speaker 4: this is why.
8:21
Speaker 7: I did it.
8:22
Speaker 9: I think a lot of what I saw in the
8:23
Speaker 9: movie too.
8:23
Speaker 10: We were talking about this earlier, was the message that
8:26
Speaker 10: there's already power in you, but you might not recognize
8:29
Speaker 10: it at a point, and that we all need something
8:31
Speaker 10: to bring us about it. That and for a lot
8:33
Speaker 10: of us, especially black community wise, it is religion that
8:35
Speaker 10: we turn to that helps us kind of like figure
8:37
Speaker 10: that out.
8:38
Speaker 6: I'm glad you said that, because you know, whether you're
8:41
Speaker 6: religious or not. When we use these words like faith
8:45
Speaker 6: and when we use words like redemption, people always attribute
8:48
Speaker 6: them to religion or spirituality. But there's a different angle
8:51
Speaker 6: as well. Even if you're a science based thinker, you
8:55
Speaker 6: got to have faith in the unknown something. All of
9:00
Speaker 6: your things are hypotheses because you weren't here a million
9:03
Speaker 6: years ago to say this, carbing, this, that and the other.
9:05
Speaker 6: And when we use words like redemption, you know, if
9:08
Speaker 6: you wanted to lose weight, you started working out in
9:12
Speaker 6: a diet and then you kind of went off. You know,
9:15
Speaker 6: you can put back on some pounds when you're on
9:17
Speaker 6: your road back, like let me get back on my deme.
9:20
Speaker 6: That's a form of redemption. You're redeeming yourself if you
9:24
Speaker 6: did somebody wrong. When you come and you humble, you apologize,
9:27
Speaker 6: youo my bad. That's a form of redemption. So I'm
9:31
Speaker 6: only saying that to say it's not just from a
9:33
Speaker 6: faith based angle, it's just from a human experience angles
9:37
Speaker 6: what perspective you're looking at it from you?
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Speaker 10: In this movie, you guys use a lot of the
9:42
Speaker 10: things from today, Like you mentioned, like there's a lot
9:43
Speaker 10: of like going live on social media and the chat
9:46
Speaker 10: and all that stuff. Right, Omar, you've had the like
9:50
Speaker 10: the career path where we've seen you in so many
9:52
Speaker 10: different versions of like what the streets look like. Talk
9:56
Speaker 10: about that transition just as an actor, but also what
9:59
Speaker 10: you're teaching through your art when you say yes to
10:01
Speaker 10: these type of films.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's it's it's a reflection of the now right
10:07
Speaker 6: and and kind of from my elder.
10:11
Speaker 3: If you will, perspective perspective.
10:17
Speaker 6: You know, what we depicted in the movie is like
10:20
Speaker 6: the the insanity of of you know, how social media
10:25
Speaker 6: can be, how people take something that's virtual and bring
10:29
Speaker 6: it into their they have real feelings about it and
10:32
Speaker 6: they take real actions based on things that are just
10:35
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, hyperbole. Like, So it's it's
10:38
Speaker 6: it's just I guess it's more pervasive than when we
10:44
Speaker 6: were coming up. It was like you in you in
10:46
Speaker 6: high school, somebody say something in first period. It kind
10:50
Speaker 6: of get around by lunch everybody like and then they
10:54
Speaker 6: gathering around, Yo, y'all gonna fight after school?
10:55
Speaker 8: Like you know what I mean?
10:57
Speaker 6: But that would travel kind of slower, you know, now
11:00
Speaker 6: out with it. It's so instant with social media that
11:02
Speaker 6: there's there's not time to like process and like critically
11:06
Speaker 6: think before you do something. You know, so when people
11:09
Speaker 6: you know, I think it's a reflection of the now
11:11
Speaker 6: to have that in the film, and I think it's
11:14
Speaker 6: the elements of the film that that component is important.
11:16
Speaker 1: Everybody with a known bishop h uh immediately and social
11:22
Speaker 1: media was aund exactly exactly immediately.
11:24
Speaker 5: That's what now the end the movie. Do you this
11:27
Speaker 5: is a question for all three of you. Do you
11:29
Speaker 5: think that Malik was actually at first a bad guy?
11:32
Speaker 5: Like or just doing what he had to do? You
11:34
Speaker 5: know what I mean?
11:35
Speaker 9: Like, because it's different ways to look at it.
11:37
Speaker 5: You can come and come at it from two different perspectives,
11:40
Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
11:41
Speaker 7: Absolutely, Yeah, from a personal perspective, Malik has similarities of
11:49
Speaker 7: my life, you know. And again, you know, situations push
11:53
Speaker 7: you into situations Like I said, I come from household
11:57
Speaker 7: nine kids, he did, and so public A My father
12:00
Speaker 7: used to have to hide up under the porch when
12:02
Speaker 7: the Public aid people come around your bell and sit
12:05
Speaker 7: on the couch and they test your teeth and lift
12:08
Speaker 7: your shirt up. Make she ain't got no whips on you,
12:09
Speaker 7: and that sort of thing. And that was like traumatizing.
12:12
Speaker 8: You know. When I came a teenager, I'm like, we
12:14
Speaker 8: I'm gonna help my mom. You know, you had.
12:16
Speaker 7: Movies like the Mac, You had movies like Superfls. You
12:20
Speaker 7: sell this Keilo right here. You can get your family
12:22
Speaker 7: out the hood, you know, And that impressed me. You
12:25
Speaker 7: know what I'm saying. I'm like, well, it's the only
12:26
Speaker 7: game that left me to play. You did in the seventies,
12:29
Speaker 7: either gonna be an entertainer or you're gonna be an
12:31
Speaker 7: athlete or a drug dealer, one of the three.
12:34
Speaker 6: Hey thing you just said in the seventies.
12:36
Speaker 7: Yeah, in the seventies, that's the ere I grew up in.
12:38
Speaker 7: And so again, you know, by the time I became
12:41
Speaker 7: a chief in the nineties, you know, I was in
12:43
Speaker 7: the penitentiary.
12:44
Speaker 8: You did, you know what I'm saying.
12:45
Speaker 7: And mister Hoover came along with a message of century
12:48
Speaker 7: twenty one saying there wasn't gonna be no more gang
12:51
Speaker 7: banging on each other. You did, you know what I'm saying,
12:52
Speaker 7: We're gonna be all one family. And what the government did.
12:55
Speaker 7: They threw them in a super maximum prison to silence them.
12:59
Speaker 7: I'm an ambassador for that message, and it wasn't long
13:02
Speaker 7: before I found myself in a super maximum prison to
13:06
Speaker 7: silence to me.
13:07
Speaker 1: I don't speak to that for a second because people
13:09
Speaker 1: would like to say, you know, Larry Hoover is just
13:11
Speaker 1: some gangsta criminal who just needs to be locked away.
13:14
Speaker 1: But you know, people that actually know him in his
13:16
Speaker 1: stories say feel like he's a political prisoner.
13:19
Speaker 8: Absolutely absolutely.
13:20
Speaker 7: I mean again, the man is almost eighty something, you
13:23
Speaker 7: know what I'm saying. But every time come up to parole,
13:25
Speaker 7: they show a picture of him being twenty six, and
13:28
Speaker 7: you know it's a fear factor. Politics, move on fear,
13:32
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying. Trump doing the same thing
13:34
Speaker 7: right now, fear he did. You know what I'm saying,
13:36
Speaker 7: If mister Hoover was home right now, a whole lot
13:39
Speaker 7: of things will ceasing desist because people still give reverence
13:42
Speaker 7: to his name and his word, and so again you
13:45
Speaker 7: have Jeff Ford the same way political prisoners. You know,
13:48
Speaker 7: this guy gonna free the bitcoin people, you know what
13:52
Speaker 7: I'm saying, who embells them hundreds of millions of dollars?
13:55
Speaker 7: He let them out of prison. But somebody understand me,
13:57
Speaker 7: who actually hadn't hurt nobody know a was thirty years
14:00
Speaker 7: us still holding them hostage.
14:02
Speaker 5: How difficult is that though?
14:03
Speaker 2: Right?
14:03
Speaker 5: Because when you on the streets, you got well, when
14:06
Speaker 5: you're in the streets, you got your soldiers, you know
14:08
Speaker 5: what I mean, people that look up to you to
14:10
Speaker 5: lead them in the street life. Right, and then when
14:13
Speaker 5: you're thrown in prison and now you are you're preaching
14:16
Speaker 5: the total opposite of that. The pressure of it is
14:19
Speaker 5: like did we follow you still? But this when we
14:22
Speaker 5: was doing out here? Like how you going?
14:23
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
14:24
Speaker 5: What are the pressures?
14:25
Speaker 4: Like?
14:25
Speaker 5: Been and share your experience even when you were incarcerated,
14:30
Speaker 5: Like was that any type of pressure being in there
14:33
Speaker 5: leading the total opposite of what you was thrown in
14:35
Speaker 5: there for?
14:36
Speaker 7: To be honest with you, I had several attempts on
14:38
Speaker 7: my life right across my throat, you know, because again
14:42
Speaker 7: I wasn't with the homosexuality, you raping young brothers.
14:46
Speaker 8: I wasn't with that move, you know.
14:48
Speaker 7: And so again that tent was made of my life
14:50
Speaker 7: because you had older guys who have been there and
14:52
Speaker 7: they're gonna be there, and they say, well, listen, these
14:54
Speaker 7: are they wives and et cetera. And so again I
14:57
Speaker 7: did go through a bit of trepidation about you know
15:00
Speaker 7: what I'm saying, because I put my guns down with
15:03
Speaker 7: the opposition put their guns down. So I took counsel
15:07
Speaker 7: with my father and he told me, you know, it
15:09
Speaker 7: don't take no courage to blend into the crowd. It
15:12
Speaker 7: takes courage to stand out from the crowd. And so
15:15
Speaker 7: I took that shot.
15:16
Speaker 8: You know what I'm saying.
15:16
Speaker 7: I met with all the rest of the cheese in
15:18
Speaker 7: my community and let them know, listen, I'm going on
15:21
Speaker 7: this side of the street, and I pray you will
15:23
Speaker 7: let me do this peacefully, because again, you know, like
15:26
Speaker 7: I said, redemption, and I can always go back that
15:29
Speaker 7: way as well if my life is threatned, you know.
15:32
Speaker 7: But fortunately God put a cover over me. And again,
15:36
Speaker 7: you know, I was able to bless my community with
15:38
Speaker 7: thousands of jobs over the last nineteen years that I've
15:41
Speaker 7: been involved with anti violence.
15:44
Speaker 10: And you feel that in the movie though, like the
15:45
Speaker 10: movie to me, I don't know if this is what
15:47
Speaker 10: you guys, are you intended, but it's almost like a
15:49
Speaker 10: like the messaging is like an act of like activism
15:52
Speaker 10: of trying to wake people up on the streets right
15:55
Speaker 10: now and let them know to join exactly what you're
15:57
Speaker 10: talking about. And a lot of times those things are
16:00
Speaker 10: not accepted when we are putting our people together saying, look,
16:04
Speaker 10: y'all got these soldiers, but like, if y'all did this
16:07
Speaker 10: instead of it is right. So what has that pushback
16:09
Speaker 10: been like? Because I know y'all going into theaters and like.
16:12
Speaker 8: What's that.
16:17
Speaker 2: I'm hearing? We got some disturbing news about this movie.
16:21
Speaker 8: Yeah, listen, me tell you something.
16:24
Speaker 7: The reality of the fact is, you know, the powers
16:26
Speaker 7: that be are trying to suppress this movie as we speak.
16:30
Speaker 7: You know, you had you know, several studios, so I say,
16:34
Speaker 7: theaters who actually pulled the movie two days before it's
16:38
Speaker 7: opening date. You know, I have family and friends in
16:41
Speaker 7: various states who contacted me and said, man, listen, we
16:44
Speaker 7: can't find the movie. You know, it was there two
16:47
Speaker 7: weeks ago, but now it's you know, out of sort.
16:51
Speaker 4: Two days before the release, never unheard of, a lot
16:55
Speaker 4: of unheard of, and especially at the inner cities where
16:59
Speaker 4: people are hurting and they want to see this film.
17:01
Speaker 2: That we made the movie for.
17:04
Speaker 6: We made the movie for the community, and the actively
17:09
Speaker 6: and aggressively trying to keep the film from the community.
17:12
Speaker 6: And at the end of the day, you know, the
17:17
Speaker 6: God don't stop working. Even all I hear about is
17:20
Speaker 6: the Devil's a lot of devils this What about the
17:24
Speaker 6: other side? What about the real side, the true side?
17:27
Speaker 6: And that's why we hear unapologetically standing for the power
17:30
Speaker 6: to light. You under see what I'm saying, and it's
17:33
Speaker 6: it is crazy, it's very it's disgusting, but it's a
17:38
Speaker 6: sign of these times of now.
17:40
Speaker 7: The truth of the matter is Cook County has the
17:42
Speaker 7: biggest jail system in the country as far as prison,
17:46
Speaker 7: you know, the Cook County to hold you before you actually.
17:49
Speaker 2: Go to prison.
17:51
Speaker 7: And you have people who made a living of building
17:53
Speaker 7: these buildings. You understand me to try to, I guess,
17:57
Speaker 7: inconcerrate the whole mass of a generation. You know again,
18:02
Speaker 7: I sat there from nineteen eighty eight to two thousand
18:05
Speaker 7: and six, you know what I'm saying, And it's not
18:09
Speaker 7: I didn't change my mind. I had changed my mind,
18:13
Speaker 7: but the judge didn't change my time.
18:14
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
18:15
Speaker 7: I still had to sit there languishing and trying to
18:18
Speaker 7: send messages out you know what I'm saying through legal mail.
18:20
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, saying Listen, yeah, put them
18:22
Speaker 7: guns down, et cetera, et cetera.
18:24
Speaker 8: And the truth of.
18:25
Speaker 7: The matter is again, you know, my family has been
18:28
Speaker 7: in that community for over sixty years and so we
18:31
Speaker 7: had roots, you know, so who's able to come out
18:34
Speaker 7: with this message?
18:36
Speaker 8: You know, it resonated.
18:38
Speaker 7: It resonated, and I can say, you know what I'm
18:40
Speaker 7: saying that the people are clamoring for this movie to
18:43
Speaker 7: be put back in the studio.
18:45
Speaker 1: The reasoning did they give it? Is it about rais?
18:47
Speaker 1: Is it about the religious imagery?
18:49
Speaker 4: Like listen to this, this is you're gonna laugh now.
18:53
Speaker 4: The reason is it wasn't pre sold enough. Who pre
18:58
Speaker 4: sells you know, like that's small like that, it's pretty
19:03
Speaker 4: sold enough. And and even people that bought up theaters
19:06
Speaker 4: were refunded.
19:08
Speaker 6: What damn people brought out whole theaters to see the film,
19:13
Speaker 6: and they refunded them. That doesn't even make it.
19:15
Speaker 4: No, specifically in Chicago, in Chicago County and especially in Chica.
19:23
Speaker 8: Cicero.
19:24
Speaker 7: You know, in the urban areas where these particular movies
19:26
Speaker 7: are now these theaters are, you know, because we don't
19:29
Speaker 7: have any theaters on Madison Street no more. You know,
19:32
Speaker 7: they don't have them downtown anymore. You know, you have
19:35
Speaker 7: to go to the outer suburbs to actually see a film.
19:39
Speaker 7: And again, I guess they say they didn't want to
19:40
Speaker 7: add for American community. You know what I'm saying. The
19:42
Speaker 7: flood they show like.
19:43
Speaker 5: That, damn so money don't even make sense. I mean,
19:47
Speaker 5: bax office only even down matter no more. Crazy.
19:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they cry how they care about the communities. Right,
19:56
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to say that, but if you really care
19:59
Speaker 4: about the communit and please let them know how attempting
20:03
Speaker 4: this film is. What does what does west side Chicago brothers?
20:07
Speaker 4: What do they think about this film? People that they've
20:09
Speaker 4: seen it?
20:09
Speaker 7: Listen, I mean people was crying, you know what I'm saying, mothers, daughters, brothers.
20:17
Speaker 7: You know, because you can see literally see yourself when
20:20
Speaker 7: people from Chicago saw Madison Street. You know, they could
20:24
Speaker 7: relate to Madison Street. When they saw Central, they can
20:27
Speaker 7: relate to Central. You know, when they saw Shan King,
20:30
Speaker 7: people start cheating, clapping their hands. And this is just
20:33
Speaker 7: the play where you go you shoes shined it, But
20:35
Speaker 7: no one has ever brought the movie Jondre took the
20:40
Speaker 7: Inn West Side. You know, you have people who who profess, uh,
20:46
Speaker 7: that won't change. But again, when you have a message
20:48
Speaker 7: like this is coming to introduce change, you know you
20:52
Speaker 7: have powers that be like hold it. This might stop
20:55
Speaker 7: our gravy train. You know, people might stop selling drugs
20:57
Speaker 7: the way they was doing. People might stop shooting one another,
21:00
Speaker 7: and we're gonna lose some sheriff jobs. I'll give you
21:03
Speaker 7: a perfect example. When I was first taken to a
21:07
Speaker 7: town super maximum prison, uh only way there. I'm watching
21:12
Speaker 7: the surroundings. You know, I'm seeing houses, there was a
21:15
Speaker 7: dilapidated I'm seeing the horse would have bent back. I'm
21:19
Speaker 7: seeing rusty tractors. But when I left that eight years later,
21:23
Speaker 7: they had brand new houses, brand new cars, boats of
21:27
Speaker 7: the driveway. Why because when the prison come, the gas
21:30
Speaker 7: stationhuld come, the bank, come, the restaurant come, because black
21:34
Speaker 7: folks gonna come visit their people, you understand me. And
21:38
Speaker 7: it built the whole industry around this prison, you did.
21:42
Speaker 7: And so when we shut it down, people was out
21:45
Speaker 7: there literally with their signs, don't take our prison away, madness.
21:51
Speaker 2: That's your question.
21:52
Speaker 1: Know what's the weight of playing a character who had
21:55
Speaker 1: so much darkness around him, but then the weight of
21:57
Speaker 1: having tacit. I guess powers that be trying to suppress,
22:01
Speaker 1: suppress the film, the story you're trying to tell.
22:03
Speaker 6: That's a great question for me. I think you've heard
22:08
Speaker 6: me say this before. It's like, it's we're fighting in this, uh,
22:13
Speaker 6: the war of our lifetime, and my art is my
22:17
Speaker 6: weapon and choice. So for me, it comes with the territory,
22:21
Speaker 6: and you know, it just fuels me more. It just
22:28
Speaker 6: lets me know I'm on the right path. Because when
22:31
Speaker 6: you talk about like the you know, I've talked about
22:33
Speaker 6: this before, the power of imagery, the power of storytelling.
22:39
Speaker 6: What art does for us not only is the community,
22:43
Speaker 6: but just as human beings, it just inspires us and
22:46
Speaker 6: motivates us. We can it's cathartic, it can be right.
22:52
Speaker 6: And so when you're when you're a part of a
22:54
Speaker 6: project like this, it's it's all meant for entertainment, but
22:57
Speaker 6: entertainment is relative to your perspective. Right you can go
23:01
Speaker 6: key key, or you can go have some conversations and
23:05
Speaker 6: apply some things that actually help you shift something in
23:09
Speaker 6: your life for the better. And so for me, the
23:12
Speaker 6: weight of that, I'm ready for it. All this is
23:15
Speaker 6: this is I feel. I don't feel I'm living in
23:18
Speaker 6: my purpose. I think when Elena and I first met,
23:23
Speaker 6: I said to her, I understand why this opportunity is
23:28
Speaker 6: before me right now. I totally understand why this is
23:32
Speaker 6: all happening right now in this moment, and I'm ready.
23:35
Speaker 6: So I'm ready.
23:37
Speaker 9: What happened a moment ago.
23:39
Speaker 5: I was about to ask Yolena, is this the first
23:41
Speaker 5: movie that you've done that has ever gotten a response
23:44
Speaker 5: like this, because you know you've done films before.
23:46
Speaker 4: It was the long before Call Man of God, and
23:49
Speaker 4: that film was done in Greece. It was about a
23:53
Speaker 4: very popular saint. The reason I did that I had
23:57
Speaker 4: a human approach to it. This was a man who
23:59
Speaker 4: was ustly prosecuted his whole life. I mean prosecution. If
24:06
Speaker 4: you see his prosecution from within the church and what
24:10
Speaker 4: he had to go through and how he dealt with it,
24:13
Speaker 4: we all might think our problems all of a sudden
24:15
Speaker 4: shrink and again seeing that kind of story and seeing
24:21
Speaker 4: his humility and the love that stemmed from that was
24:26
Speaker 4: the reason I did the film. Before the film came out,
24:29
Speaker 4: they started in Greece. It was it was a chaost.
24:31
Speaker 4: They started to try to stop and talk about the
24:34
Speaker 4: Greek country, that's the orthodox Christian country that you would
24:36
Speaker 4: think that there would be a problem. Oh, Greek Film
24:39
Speaker 4: Center would not even give a penny. They said that
24:41
Speaker 4: we were going to be fired if you even attempt
24:43
Speaker 4: to do that. And they said only one grandmother with
24:47
Speaker 4: a grandchild will see this movie and end up being
24:49
Speaker 4: the most successful film of the year that year. And
24:52
Speaker 4: I don't think they've ever forgiven him for this. So
24:57
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I'm not you know, you see
24:59
Speaker 4: the thing with me, I'm not a propagandist. I like
25:02
Speaker 4: to tell the truth. Yes, I personally have faith, that's
25:06
Speaker 4: my thing. If it wasn't from my faith, I wouldn't
25:08
Speaker 4: be alive today. So I thank Oud for everything first,
25:14
Speaker 4: but I don't push that on anybody else. I just
25:18
Speaker 4: like to tell the truth so people can find courage
25:22
Speaker 4: and understand that they can live lives even while we
25:27
Speaker 4: are in this world, it's filled with suffering, injustice and pain.
25:31
Speaker 4: That you can see that there were people that gained
25:35
Speaker 4: that joy that is not of this world. And it's
25:38
Speaker 4: only that joy that can make you truly free, you know.
25:41
Speaker 4: And this is why I make these movies. And that's
25:44
Speaker 4: the only reason I don't. I'm not a I don't
25:49
Speaker 4: push any agendas or anybody. And maybe that's about them
25:52
Speaker 4: because it's not. You can't put it in the category, Oh,
25:55
Speaker 4: it's a faith based film, so let's just laugh about it,
25:58
Speaker 4: like you know what I'm saying. But it's actually it's
26:01
Speaker 4: very hardcore. It's very truthful. And maybe that's why that
26:05
Speaker 4: that's an area where it makes people uncomfortable.
26:09
Speaker 1: You said something very important just now. You say joy
26:11
Speaker 1: can make you free, and I always feel that way.
26:13
Speaker 1: That's why they're always trying to steal all joy from
26:16
Speaker 1: joy killers.
26:20
Speaker 6: Is the truth, the truth. The truth doesn't have an agenda.
26:24
Speaker 8: It just is.
26:25
Speaker 6: It just is right, unapologetically so and the the you know,
26:31
Speaker 6: the the all of the resources, that's the word that
26:36
Speaker 6: not just our community, just impoverished communities in general. Need
26:40
Speaker 6: don't always come in the form of they come in
26:42
Speaker 6: different forms. Sometimes it's clothing, Sometimes it's food, sometimes it's finances.
26:47
Speaker 6: Most times it's art in whatever form. If you just
26:53
Speaker 6: study history history I'm talking about for thousands of years
26:56
Speaker 6: most times, because that's the thing that essentially is a
27:00
Speaker 6: free thing. You can see the person saying, you can
27:02
Speaker 6: see them dance, but what are they singing about? Oh
27:05
Speaker 6: that's a story about. Oh that's kind of Oh, and
27:07
Speaker 6: that's how they turn and found their joy. You find
27:10
Speaker 6: a smile in the in in the darkness, right, That's.
27:14
Speaker 3: What keeps us sing and it brings you joy exactly.
27:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you can think about putting the cardboard box
27:19
Speaker 1: on the on the concrete. You don't have no money
27:21
Speaker 1: to do that, But just break dance, you know what
27:23
Speaker 1: I mean. Somebody got one cossette tape. You put that
27:26
Speaker 1: song on, everybody singing it, you know what I mean?
27:28
Speaker 2: Like that's joy. Ye, that's what art does.
27:32
Speaker 10: What happens next though, because like this is happening, right,
27:34
Speaker 10: But is this is this is there a legal fight
27:37
Speaker 10: that you guys can have or like.
27:38
Speaker 4: Well, I think the best thing is for people to
27:40
Speaker 4: go and see this film, right, And it's going to
27:43
Speaker 4: depend on that because we still have quite a lot
27:45
Speaker 4: of theaters, even though they try to. You know, what
27:49
Speaker 4: do you if you want to stop the movie, what
27:51
Speaker 4: do what do you do? You you mess with the
27:54
Speaker 4: opening weekend. I mean, take any other movie out there
27:58
Speaker 4: and try to do that. That's exactly. But we managed
28:01
Speaker 4: to recover some things. And I think that if people
28:05
Speaker 4: go see the movie, they don't want you to see
28:07
Speaker 4: I don't know why they don't want you to see
28:09
Speaker 4: a film that they will uplift you, that will tell
28:11
Speaker 4: you you are great. You can come out of the bondage.
28:14
Speaker 11: You know, you can't.
28:16
Speaker 4: You can't keep you. You can't keep you in the
28:18
Speaker 4: bondage forever.
28:20
Speaker 11: You know.
28:20
Speaker 4: It's like there's a way out, you know. And then
28:23
Speaker 4: this is this is go support this.
28:25
Speaker 5: People can't make noise. That's the type of thing that
28:27
Speaker 5: people make noise about. Stuff is taken away, you know,
28:31
Speaker 5: for no it's the reason, but no reason at all. Basically,
28:35
Speaker 5: you know, it's a film that the youth, in my opinion,
28:38
Speaker 5: needs to see. I mean definitely for adults, but the
28:42
Speaker 5: youth need to see. Our young boys and our young
28:44
Speaker 5: girls of the world need to see it.
28:46
Speaker 7: It's very impressionable and I'd like to just come in
28:50
Speaker 7: Elena and Omar. You know, because again haven't had the
28:54
Speaker 7: conversation and talk about my life with Elina. She was
28:57
Speaker 7: able to pin it on paper and bed to Omar
29:01
Speaker 7: and he was able to, you know, morph into that
29:04
Speaker 7: person because Malik was a real, real person, said was
29:08
Speaker 7: a real person. You know, Mike was a real person.
29:11
Speaker 7: He did know what I'm saying. These thes men's came
29:13
Speaker 7: in and did they think? You know, I seen this
29:16
Speaker 7: guy go through the lamentation that I felt, you know
29:19
Speaker 7: what I'm saying while I was languishing in the super
29:21
Speaker 7: maximum prison. You know, again, I was having a spiritual
29:24
Speaker 7: battle about you understand me the things my father had
29:27
Speaker 7: instilled into me versus what the world had showed me.
29:31
Speaker 7: You see what I'm saying, and there's a dichotomy there.
29:35
Speaker 7: And so again just to see him take on that
29:38
Speaker 7: personality and morph into it, you know, I got a
29:43
Speaker 7: world of respect for bro Man.
29:44
Speaker 5: Was it hard for you to embody what that Chicago
29:47
Speaker 5: accent would sound like? That she was New York.
29:52
Speaker 6: That was a challenging, you know. Shout out to Denise Woods,
29:59
Speaker 6: who I worked with it an incredible dialect coach. That
30:02
Speaker 6: was I just didn't want it to impede on anything,
30:08
Speaker 6: like you know, you say one word and the next word.
30:11
Speaker 6: But it was very challenging because that's Chicago. There's an accent,
30:15
Speaker 6: but then there's the south side, west side, north side,
30:18
Speaker 6: and then all these little It was very challenging.
30:22
Speaker 2: I wonder, Elena, why do you think God showed you Chicago.
30:25
Speaker 4: You know that's a good thing. I was on an
30:27
Speaker 4: island of I was in Greece when that happened. This
30:31
Speaker 4: is a crazy story because there's so many providential moments
30:37
Speaker 4: in my life, and in this story, I let me
30:39
Speaker 4: share this one. I was in it because I was
30:41
Speaker 4: struggling with the story for a long time, and I
30:43
Speaker 4: was on an island called Eva that one of the
30:48
Speaker 4: in a monastery in minded to spend the night by
30:50
Speaker 4: this elder who wanted to ask me because men of
30:53
Speaker 4: God did so well in Greece, and they wanted to
30:56
Speaker 4: ask me if I can make a film about this
30:58
Speaker 4: other saint. And I said, I never even thought of
31:00
Speaker 4: making films that saints. I just simply read these stories
31:03
Speaker 4: and and they resonated with me. So if unless I
31:05
Speaker 4: have something honest in my heart, I can't express it,
31:09
Speaker 4: then I'm the wrong person. So he said, no, no, no, no,
31:11
Speaker 4: just listen to me. Just sit here tonight and pray.
31:14
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I So, so I sat there, I
31:18
Speaker 4: put a blanket. It was cold and and and and
31:21
Speaker 4: I'm I was a little bit silly because what I'm
31:23
Speaker 4: supposed to ask? Oh, can I get a message for
31:26
Speaker 4: a film? And I'm gonna pray something like that? That's
31:29
Speaker 4: what I want. I usually pray about. And so I said,
31:32
Speaker 4: so I said, there, well, I pray for humility for
31:35
Speaker 4: my brothers and sisters for you know, I don't know
31:38
Speaker 4: I I I pray for God to show me my
31:40
Speaker 4: own sins and never to say sin of another. You know,
31:42
Speaker 4: I tried to have. I want to get that piece
31:44
Speaker 4: for like Saint Moses, I can at the end of
31:47
Speaker 4: my life, I can.
31:48
Speaker 11: I can.
31:49
Speaker 4: I can smile when I leave this one. So so
31:51
Speaker 4: that that that's where I like to be. I know
31:53
Speaker 4: that's a long journey. That's maybe too much to ask,
31:56
Speaker 4: but forgive me. So so, so what what what I
32:00
Speaker 4: was gonna say? I was there and and because naturally
32:03
Speaker 4: Saint Moses was in my mind, because I'm like, why
32:05
Speaker 4: I cannot tell this story in the fourth century I'm
32:08
Speaker 4: doing in town for two years, and something is playing
32:10
Speaker 4: with me until all of a sudden, I see literally
32:14
Speaker 4: in front of me Chicago funeral grandmother. That's like, is
32:21
Speaker 4: this a And then I'm like, well, I have a
32:23
Speaker 4: movie now. Like so I was super happy by the
32:25
Speaker 4: time I got home it was in Athens. But then
32:28
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, but how I'm gonna tell a
32:29
Speaker 4: story of Chicago. I gotta go and meet somebody and
32:32
Speaker 4: and and I and thank god I met this amazing
32:36
Speaker 4: man here that that without whom and his brothers and sisters,
32:39
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to do this. We were able
32:41
Speaker 4: to to really put this together. And yeah, so that's
32:46
Speaker 4: how this honestly came about. Somebody might think you're out
32:49
Speaker 4: of it, but I told you the truth. So so
32:52
Speaker 4: that's that's that's how these things come.
32:54
Speaker 6: And and uh, it's not to cut you up, but
32:57
Speaker 6: it's a beautiful thing because she Icrgo is Chicago, but
33:01
Speaker 6: it's also a microcosm for the sort of every hood
33:04
Speaker 6: in the country.
33:05
Speaker 8: Right.
33:05
Speaker 6: It could be Memphis, it could be Houston, it could
33:08
Speaker 6: be you know what I mean, where these where these
33:12
Speaker 6: situations are happening at a rampant pace. But it's perfect
33:16
Speaker 6: because Chicago is Chicago sort of the epicenter right now
33:19
Speaker 6: of like gang culture and that whole sort of mentality.
33:22
Speaker 1: Whenever they want to demonize niggas, that's the first place
33:25
Speaker 1: of conservatives like.
33:26
Speaker 2: The name.
33:28
Speaker 8: With quick about Chicago. I mean, I'm a world traveler,
33:31
Speaker 8: right and everywhere I go. You know what I'm saying.
33:34
Speaker 7: When you mentioned Chicago, they glorify the fact of al
33:38
Speaker 7: capolon as if that gangstasm stopped with al capolone.
33:43
Speaker 8: You know what I'm saying.
33:44
Speaker 7: I mean, foe has been around since sixty seven, you did,
33:47
Speaker 7: and we started off again being the Wheelcox Boys protecting
33:51
Speaker 7: four Corners on the West side of Chicago where Polish
33:55
Speaker 7: and Italians. Remember, while Luther King came to the West
33:57
Speaker 7: Side about unfair housing because we couldn't move to the
34:01
Speaker 7: West Side back in the sixties. And so that's where
34:03
Speaker 7: the Wheel Coins Boys was formulated to protect us, our
34:07
Speaker 7: families from these races Italians and Polos who didn't want
34:12
Speaker 7: us on the West side of Chicago. And it more
34:14
Speaker 7: from Wheel Coins Boys to four Corners, get the four Corners,
34:20
Speaker 7: and then it became hustlers.
34:23
Speaker 5: So she prayed for God to show her Chicago and
34:26
Speaker 5: you show her all black.
34:28
Speaker 4: And then she came, no, no, West Side.
34:32
Speaker 5: Okay, so what blacks depth?
34:34
Speaker 4: It's Pulaski Road road and I want to say, can
34:38
Speaker 4: I can I?
34:39
Speaker 2: Can I please?
34:46
Speaker 4: Can I say something? Pulaski South Pulaski Road right west.
34:51
Speaker 4: That's a hood and a lot of people ask me,
34:54
Speaker 4: well were you You know there are people that have
34:56
Speaker 4: these things like, oh, we're a little bit afraid to
34:59
Speaker 4: go there, and I'm like, I'm like, first of all,
35:06
Speaker 4: I'm Serbian. I grew up in the hood. That's number one.
35:10
Speaker 4: Well you know so so, and I must say that
35:16
Speaker 4: I and I if I say this from my heart,
35:19
Speaker 4: I will literally tear up someone to try to keep
35:22
Speaker 4: it back. I've never felt more alive mm hmm than
35:28
Speaker 4: going on the west to sixty two South Pulaski Road
35:33
Speaker 4: his office and working with with with people of the
35:38
Speaker 4: West side of Chicago. I I would never I could
35:43
Speaker 4: never be grateful enough for the joy that you have
35:47
Speaker 4: given me. And I I'm sorry, guys.
35:52
Speaker 7: I felt she earned the name Chief Man Chief because
35:58
Speaker 7: again she was able to give a man that's the
36:00
Speaker 7: class she took guys who was literally on the corners
36:04
Speaker 7: selling drugs, guys who was in the rough house trying
36:06
Speaker 7: to rap in the hallway to their peers. You did,
36:10
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying, and literally put them in
36:12
Speaker 7: front of the world. Had enough trust in these guys,
36:17
Speaker 7: put them in front of the world. I mean there
36:18
Speaker 7: was there was thesbians there such as oh Ma. Then
36:21
Speaker 7: she took some rappers and trusted them, you know what
36:24
Speaker 7: I'm saying, to come out of the rap personality and
36:26
Speaker 7: become thesbians. And these guys encompassed these personalities. And I
36:30
Speaker 7: was right there with my foot down make sure they
36:32
Speaker 7: kept it authentic.
36:33
Speaker 8: Read for it.
36:36
Speaker 6: Sorry, I was just gonna say sorry about this. Lene
36:46
Speaker 6: as our soul sister, and she was the skipper right
36:50
Speaker 6: And and for those because there will be those. White
36:54
Speaker 6: woman is that she's from the She from a wars
36:58
Speaker 6: On country. And when you sit and you talk with
37:00
Speaker 6: her and you discover her intentions coming from the right
37:04
Speaker 6: place and that ultimate place where that color and all
37:08
Speaker 6: of that doesn't exist. We we are.
37:10
Speaker 2: It's the energy.
37:11
Speaker 6: It's the energy that's really driving us really, so we're
37:15
Speaker 6: able to articulate and have the and and and create
37:22
Speaker 6: the conversation. But the right conversations and coming from the
37:26
Speaker 6: right place, so to to to to piggyback on what
37:31
Speaker 6: King was just talking about. It's like, nah, she went
37:33
Speaker 6: boost to the ground, you know, in the mud, and
37:37
Speaker 6: was then was comfortable because the people could feel that energy,
37:41
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. They could feel that energy,
37:43
Speaker 6: energy emanating for her from her. So everyone felt that
37:46
Speaker 6: it was a safe space, you know what I mean,
37:49
Speaker 6: to give and to be vulnerable and to expose those
37:52
Speaker 6: parts of themselves.
37:53
Speaker 2: Said, you never felt more alive, Lena.
37:55
Speaker 1: I want to I want to hear more about that,
37:56
Speaker 1: because a lot of times people talk about places, they
37:59
Speaker 1: talk about people they never talked to.
38:01
Speaker 2: So you actually went there and spoke to these individuals.
38:04
Speaker 2: What made you feel so alive?
38:06
Speaker 8: There's so much.
38:07
Speaker 4: Love, there's so much humility, and maybe maybe there's a
38:11
Speaker 4: lot of instruction, but how people they are handled pain
38:17
Speaker 4: and lost. I mean, anybody else can be ashamed of
38:22
Speaker 4: if they saw that kind of love and that kind
38:25
Speaker 4: of humility. And I always say, like when we sometimes
38:28
Speaker 4: I have both on my boys there in sports and
38:31
Speaker 4: any any serious athletes will tell you that you're as
38:35
Speaker 4: good as your worst day. So if people want to
38:42
Speaker 4: see what their souls look like they can go visit
38:46
Speaker 4: those inner cities.
38:51
Speaker 8: I mean again, they impressed me.
38:54
Speaker 4: And the heart you'll feel alive. I mean maybe because
38:59
Speaker 4: I I love God, I'm a believer, so so maybe
39:05
Speaker 4: also that's the connection. People have faith there because that's
39:10
Speaker 4: all they have. And I know what it means to
39:12
Speaker 4: have only faith, and that's how to live by. And
39:14
Speaker 4: I don't consider that a curse. I consider that a
39:17
Speaker 4: gift because when we are weak, we are strong. And
39:20
Speaker 4: this is I feel where we connected and and people
39:24
Speaker 4: opened up and they gave me so much love and
39:26
Speaker 4: trusted me and I and that gave me courage because
39:29
Speaker 4: we did not have all the funds. We did not
39:31
Speaker 4: have whisk aalif, but we did not have fifty cent
39:34
Speaker 4: on my apps. There was nobody there, nobody, nobody. We
39:38
Speaker 4: were just thinking, there's going to be maybe one of
39:40
Speaker 4: the rappers going to wrap these lines, and and little
39:45
Speaker 4: by little things were happening, and it was beautiful to
39:48
Speaker 4: see how this and and and then I couldn't let
39:53
Speaker 4: the community down. There were moments when it looked like
39:57
Speaker 4: it was not going to happen, but I just ca
40:00
Speaker 4: it all to just do the justice to this beautiful
40:03
Speaker 4: people that you know that they're reminded me that it's
40:08
Speaker 4: those moments that matter when you when you feel joyful
40:11
Speaker 4: in a lie.
40:12
Speaker 2: The fifty on this film, Yeah, yeah.
40:14
Speaker 6: Fifties a EP and and again I think we were
40:17
Speaker 6: all drawn to the project for the right reasons. And
40:21
Speaker 6: you know, fifty gon do his thing, but but he
40:25
Speaker 6: was and he came, he came down, He was hands
40:28
Speaker 6: on and as the pieces came together, and I think
40:32
Speaker 6: he definitely felt the energy and obviously felt that this
40:36
Speaker 6: story is important and necessary.
40:39
Speaker 9: Did fifty bring you in or did?
40:41
Speaker 4: Like?
40:41
Speaker 9: How how did that work?
40:42
Speaker 4: Like?
40:42
Speaker 9: What was the time that she said that you didn't
40:44
Speaker 9: have anybody at first? So how did that timeline work?
40:46
Speaker 4: First Wiz came on board and this was again can
40:50
Speaker 4: I say this because I maybe I I was, I was,
40:54
Speaker 4: I was in Greece and I knew, God, we need
40:57
Speaker 4: a name. I mean like like this is this is
41:00
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go down. Well we need we need to
41:02
Speaker 4: get something going here. So I was this prayer that
41:08
Speaker 4: it's like call specific person and I'm like, why would
41:12
Speaker 4: I call this person? And I'm thinking, wait a second.
41:15
Speaker 4: This person had a fundraising and with Khalifa was doing
41:22
Speaker 4: the fundraising in Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh Still I'm like, Okay,
41:27
Speaker 4: well I'm going to try. So I called this lady
41:31
Speaker 4: and she was like, that's a great idea. And two
41:34
Speaker 4: weeks later with he says, yeah, I want to read
41:37
Speaker 4: the script. And he ended up reading the script. And
41:41
Speaker 4: when after we had a script to show and he
41:45
Speaker 4: just said this, he was like, I'm in. I mean,
41:47
Speaker 4: this is going to speak to people and I and
41:51
Speaker 4: so he was the first person who came on board.
41:53
Speaker 4: So that helped us, I believe then to go out
41:57
Speaker 4: and make out the offers. And I'm so grateful that
42:00
Speaker 4: I had to wait for Omar Apps to come and
42:04
Speaker 4: and and meet with me in person, which is rarely
42:06
Speaker 4: everybody wants to meet on zoom. I'm like, can I
42:08
Speaker 4: just look somebody in the eye and see, especially if
42:10
Speaker 4: I'm I'm the film director, I want to see who
42:12
Speaker 4: I'm working with. Smoking face, we were, we were we
42:17
Speaker 4: saw each other on the zoom first, but then when
42:19
Speaker 4: we saw each other face to face, there was something
42:22
Speaker 4: else he said that gave me courage. And this is
42:24
Speaker 4: it is amazing to hear it from wiz z Goes.
42:26
Speaker 4: You know what Elena I'm on board with this one
42:29
Speaker 4: takes a year, two years, three years. I'm like looking
42:32
Speaker 4: at him, like, Okay, this is very encouraging. You know,
42:34
Speaker 4: you know this is coming from it. This is because
42:36
Speaker 4: you know, whoever is meant to be part of this
42:38
Speaker 4: project will be who is not They're going to fall off.
42:41
Speaker 4: And I remember those words from him, and that also
42:45
Speaker 4: gave me strength. And then I met Omar and you
42:49
Speaker 4: watched my previous film, right, and and he felt very connected.
42:54
Speaker 4: I mean he can speak. You may yourself on that.
42:58
Speaker 6: And then you know, fifty came on board after that.
43:02
Speaker 6: But you know, Quavo skill of baby, like you said,
43:05
Speaker 6: Deontay Wilder, like as as everyone came together, we knew
43:09
Speaker 6: the assignment and and we all got to it, you know.
43:15
Speaker 6: And I think we created something really special that will
43:20
Speaker 6: speak to the community that it needs to but also
43:23
Speaker 6: other communities. It's for everybody.
43:26
Speaker 1: So so, so what what internal or even external forces
43:30
Speaker 1: were in the script that you found most compelling?
43:33
Speaker 3: Well, for me, I did.
43:34
Speaker 6: I was unfamiliar with the story of Moses the Ethiopian
43:37
Speaker 6: Moses the Black which I was kind of aggy at.
43:41
Speaker 6: But so much history is lost to us, right, so
43:44
Speaker 6: to that his story. I think Elena spoke to this earlier,
43:48
Speaker 6: which it was simple, but it was so profound for me.
43:52
Speaker 6: And then just based on the last few years of
43:56
Speaker 6: you know, personally, things that I've been dealing with internally,
44:01
Speaker 6: you know, I just understood it felt as much as
44:08
Speaker 6: it felt like in an assignment, it kind of felt
44:10
Speaker 6: like a gift. It was a reward for the for
44:14
Speaker 6: the work that I've done, my own personal redemption, you know.
44:18
Speaker 6: It was like, here's an opportunity to share that with
44:22
Speaker 6: the world, you know what I mean. And so I
44:24
Speaker 6: just put a thousand of percent of myself into the
44:29
Speaker 6: the piece, the character, all of it. I mean, we
44:32
Speaker 6: worked on the.
44:32
Speaker 4: Script and very closely. I mean, Omar is just impeccable. Yeah,
44:36
Speaker 4: very is amazing, definitely, and it helped helped the script
44:40
Speaker 4: be become even better.
44:42
Speaker 10: I don't know if you want to talk about it
44:44
Speaker 10: at all, but you mentioned the personal work that you
44:45
Speaker 10: were doing, I know with Cole read too like that
44:49
Speaker 10: film was very like even watching you talk about it,
44:53
Speaker 10: I watched your interview with any Martinez, and it seems
44:57
Speaker 10: like going from actor Omar Apps to the seat that
45:00
Speaker 10: you sitting now where you're acting but you're also writing directing.
45:03
Speaker 10: There's I mean, I feel like there's always Clay, there's
45:07
Speaker 10: always been purpose with you, but I don't know, it
45:10
Speaker 10: just seems a little bit more into personal now, like
45:12
Speaker 10: it's connected to something a little bit deeper. And are
45:14
Speaker 10: we feeling that personal work that you've done.
45:17
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I think that at this at this point in
45:22
Speaker 6: my career, but not only it's my life, right like
45:25
Speaker 6: you know, we always hear it saying like, yo, it's
45:28
Speaker 6: it's personal, it's business, it's personal. My my view is
45:31
Speaker 6: all personal because you one person that has a life
45:34
Speaker 6: to live. So everything that we do, every how what
45:38
Speaker 6: am I doing? Who am I doing it with? And
45:41
Speaker 6: like and why are we doing it? You know, that's
45:44
Speaker 6: what's driving me. So if I can't if I'm not
45:49
Speaker 6: if I'm not feeling that, I don't want to say void,
45:53
Speaker 6: if I'm not feeling that that space within myself where
45:57
Speaker 6: I'm giving, that's what it's really about. What am I giving?
46:01
Speaker 6: Because I you know, I plan to at least live
46:04
Speaker 6: to one hundred, but you know, when it's my time,
46:07
Speaker 6: the things that my actions and the things that I've
46:10
Speaker 6: been a part of will live on after me. What
46:12
Speaker 6: are they giving at those points twenty years from now,
46:16
Speaker 6: fifty years from now, one hundred years from now, one
46:18
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty, two hundred whatever. If people come back
46:21
Speaker 6: and look at what you guys do every day, what
46:25
Speaker 6: can they glean from that conversation, this conversation, you know
46:28
Speaker 6: what I mean, and so again in this in this
46:31
Speaker 6: format in terms of and it's a part of my
46:35
Speaker 6: evolution started out as I really thought, I as a writer,
46:38
Speaker 6: but you know, me as an actor, and it's like
46:42
Speaker 6: evolving to the other components of telling stories. It has
46:48
Speaker 6: to be, it has to all be aligned in terms
46:51
Speaker 6: of purpose. I think you can relate to that, you
46:55
Speaker 6: know what I mean.
46:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm sitting there thinking even about you.
46:57
Speaker 1: I'm just like yo, even in the night these it
47:00
Speaker 1: felt like all your movies were purpose for at least,
47:03
Speaker 1: like whether it was Juice, whether it was higher.
47:06
Speaker 2: Learning, whether it was would, whether it.
47:08
Speaker 1: Was into deep loving basketball. I can take life lessons
47:11
Speaker 1: from every single other movies.
47:12
Speaker 2: I'm just like you.
47:13
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't feel like you was, you know,
47:15
Speaker 1: working with intention then I did, okay.
47:18
Speaker 3: But sort of because I was so young, it was
47:21
Speaker 3: working with I was working with the opportunities versus creating
47:26
Speaker 3: the opportunity being a part of creating the opportunity, right.
47:30
Speaker 6: It's like it's like, you know, you got these are
47:33
Speaker 6: the choices, and I'm like, all right, I'll pick that one.
47:37
Speaker 3: You know that sort of aligns with my mission of like.
47:43
Speaker 6: That's a compliment of what you just said.
47:44
Speaker 3: By the way, social coming up age.
47:48
Speaker 9: Five years old now right.
47:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, and even your newer films because the fatal Affair
47:52
Speaker 5: with Nielong, I'm telling you, I had a guy that
47:55
Speaker 5: was stalking me, and when you was outside of that
47:57
Speaker 5: woman's house, it took me back to one somebody was
48:00
Speaker 5: outside of my house. I was like I needed to
48:01
Speaker 5: watch this.
48:02
Speaker 8: Yeah.
48:02
Speaker 5: Life lessons.
48:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, life lessons. And I mean that's ultimately.
48:08
Speaker 3: You don't mean this is great?
48:13
Speaker 9: Yeah, never lessons.
48:17
Speaker 7: That was another important phase that you brought to the table,
48:21
Speaker 7: you know, as a theologian. You know, she was enlightening
48:26
Speaker 7: African Americans about their true history, you know. And how
48:31
Speaker 7: again we had a great hand in putting together the
48:34
Speaker 7: twenty seven books of the Bible.
48:36
Speaker 2: You know.
48:37
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely I had no knowledge of this because I
48:40
Speaker 8: thought was the one who.
48:41
Speaker 4: Brought it absolutely well. Obviously the Apostles, yes, exactly, not
48:49
Speaker 4: an accident. I mean, obviously we all know apostles wrote
48:54
Speaker 4: the Bible, but at the time it wasn't. There was
48:58
Speaker 4: no such thing as a vibe. There many many letters
49:01
Speaker 4: written that were read in different churches at the time.
49:04
Speaker 4: Then the church went to a prosecution. There were a
49:07
Speaker 4: lot of martyrs that spilled blood. So with today we
49:10
Speaker 4: can have what we have. But this is a fact.
49:12
Speaker 4: I'm just going to read something I read at the
49:13
Speaker 4: premiere in Chicago because I wanted people to be aware.
49:16
Speaker 4: It's basically the list of the twenty seven books of
49:19
Speaker 4: the New Testament were compiled by a tenacious of the Great, who,
49:25
Speaker 4: by the way, by birth is African man from Egypt,
49:30
Speaker 4: and he was a bishop of Alexandria, which was the
49:33
Speaker 4: center of Christianity, not Rome Africa. This is a historical fact,
49:39
Speaker 4: and in his letter in three hundred and sixty seven AD,
49:43
Speaker 4: he basically put these twenty seven books as books that
49:51
Speaker 4: he believed were really written by the apostles that people
49:53
Speaker 4: should read. And then that whole thing was ratified by
49:57
Speaker 4: the Synod of Hippo in three hundred ninety three held
50:00
Speaker 4: in modern day Annaba in Algeria today, and later the
50:05
Speaker 4: Councils of Carthriage in three hundred and ninety seven and
50:08
Speaker 4: four hundred nineteen, held in close to Tunisia, Africa. Additionally,
50:12
Speaker 4: the Council of Rome in three hundred and eighty two
50:14
Speaker 4: also played a part in affirming the canon, but the
50:17
Speaker 4: two main Canons councils were held in Africa, and they
50:21
Speaker 4: were the first ones to accept the canon of the
50:24
Speaker 4: New Testament with its twenty seven books that are recognized
50:27
Speaker 4: today as the New Testament.
50:30
Speaker 8: Wow.
50:30
Speaker 4: So every time you pick up a Bible were the
50:34
Speaker 4: black men and women from Africa were the ones basically
50:38
Speaker 4: in the fourth century of Alexandria that saved Christianity from destruction,
50:43
Speaker 4: not Rome, and the African men and women played the
50:45
Speaker 4: most significant role in preserving Christian faith. So that's something
50:50
Speaker 4: that has been best kept secret in the West, and
50:52
Speaker 4: maybe it's time to be revealed.
50:54
Speaker 1: Take that Umar, Listen, We're gonna have a screening for
51:02
Speaker 1: Moses to Black Eddie, Yeah, showing that uh one of
51:06
Speaker 1: the MC theaters AMC twenty five in New York call him.
51:09
Speaker 2: That's what we've be using. Were gonna talk about. I'm
51:11
Speaker 2: about a theater for Moses to Black.
51:16
Speaker 11: Thank you.
51:16
Speaker 4: For having You're you're giving us a platform.
51:19
Speaker 5: That's wonderful real quick, yes.
51:23
Speaker 6: Wow, I gotta work one.
51:27
Speaker 5: Why did it take you so long to tell Canan
51:29
Speaker 5: that you.
51:29
Speaker 6: Was his father? Oh you're getting into that, yes, because
51:32
Speaker 6: she was making.
51:33
Speaker 9: Me mad episode of that episode.
51:34
Speaker 5: I'm like, you know, you're getting sick every time you
51:35
Speaker 5: coffee get tell him, Hey, look I'm your father.
51:39
Speaker 6: You know know that's it. That's that's some hard dudes
51:42
Speaker 6: to break, you know what I mean. Yeah, you had to,
51:44
Speaker 6: you know, get comfortable, had to get the truth.
51:47
Speaker 5: But he was an old gangster too, even though he
51:49
Speaker 5: was a cop, he was a detective.
51:50
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, heckey back in the day, you know.
51:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I feel that, young boy.
51:56
Speaker 4: Will you?
51:56
Speaker 10: Will you do these characters like you know, your character
51:58
Speaker 10: reason Kanan or even your character love and Basketball, people
52:00
Speaker 10: like attached to them so like heavily and so deeply,
52:03
Speaker 10: Like do you take that as like a nod? Or
52:05
Speaker 10: sometimes is it like oh God, like give me a second, y'all,
52:09
Speaker 10: Like this is just a character.
52:10
Speaker 6: Nah, I love it because I think that I've been
52:13
Speaker 6: doing it long enough that people people are able to detach,
52:16
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. So even like you know
52:18
Speaker 6: when you brought up something like fatal to fair this,
52:22
Speaker 6: I run into women and it was like you was
52:24
Speaker 6: a creep and they'd be dead ass, like you know,
52:27
Speaker 6: and I'm like, I did my job.
52:29
Speaker 10: Because those conversations with love and basketball too, like whether
52:32
Speaker 10: you were a hole or whether there was a real
52:35
Speaker 10: conversation about love there, whether it toxic, was it not
52:37
Speaker 10: like this whole TikTok breakdown of love in basketball?
52:39
Speaker 9: Is that the whole thing?
52:40
Speaker 8: You think it was toxic?
52:42
Speaker 9: I don't think.
52:42
Speaker 10: I think that you guys were young, and I think
52:44
Speaker 10: you were kind of learning on.
52:46
Speaker 9: The job, right, But like that's that's light, that's I
52:50
Speaker 9: think any age.
52:51
Speaker 10: But I have seen critiques of the movie where people
52:54
Speaker 10: feel like some of the things that you did and said,
52:56
Speaker 10: and like the choices you made were a bit like
52:58
Speaker 10: she should have been left.
52:59
Speaker 1: You about Quincy's trauma that he was dealing with.
53:01
Speaker 5: He was definitely dealing with drama.
53:03
Speaker 2: Talking about why do you talk about the daddy?
53:06
Speaker 8: Daddy?
53:08
Speaker 10: I'm telling you that he talked about the women who
53:10
Speaker 10: come up to him and say about fetal attraction. I'm
53:12
Speaker 10: telling you what I've seen from the women and when
53:14
Speaker 10: it comes to love in basketball.
53:15
Speaker 6: They be the key distinction you just said. You just
53:18
Speaker 6: said why Quincy's drama. The character you're saying you.
53:21
Speaker 9: Yes, see, that's what the conversation.
53:23
Speaker 10: And it's hard to look at you and not think
53:26
Speaker 10: about the characters because we've lived with them for so long.
53:28
Speaker 10: Like even when you walked in, she caught what did
53:30
Speaker 10: you call? Yeah, I forget the character, but like it's
53:32
Speaker 10: that's why I'm like, I wonder what he goes young.
53:34
Speaker 1: See, when you come from a certain era, I was
53:36
Speaker 1: born in nineteen hundred and seventy eight, Like that's nineteen hundred.
53:40
Speaker 2: That was different.
53:42
Speaker 1: He knew Omar Epps the person as well, you know
53:46
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like Omar, that's Omar Epps.
53:48
Speaker 10: And even now what we know of you, I mean
53:50
Speaker 10: what you share from like social and just interviews, it's
53:52
Speaker 10: like you know you and like your wife and your family,
53:55
Speaker 10: and I know you write a producer actor and I'm
53:57
Speaker 10: seeing her back on tour now, so it's like we get.
54:00
Speaker 9: To know you differently than how BC three hundred.
54:07
Speaker 1: Like Old Testament, I wrote a book, a Bible, y'all
54:12
Speaker 1: know that.
54:15
Speaker 9: They discovered that the music angel was the devil.
54:18
Speaker 2: Shut up.
54:18
Speaker 8: I love it.
54:19
Speaker 6: Man, I love you know, the younger generation that you know,
54:22
Speaker 6: the work resonates with them, and whether it stuff from
54:25
Speaker 6: back in the days or stuff that we're doing now.
54:27
Speaker 6: I just I love all of it. The conversations are fun,
54:30
Speaker 6: and that's what you know.
54:31
Speaker 8: It's provocative, you know.
54:32
Speaker 2: What I mean going.
54:35
Speaker 1: I mean even with a film like Moses the Black
54:37
Speaker 1: and you think about all of the movies we grew
54:39
Speaker 1: up with in the nineteen hundreds and nineties, they had
54:42
Speaker 1: intention exactly. It feels like the intention recently is just
54:46
Speaker 1: to make money, make money, let's put it out on
54:47
Speaker 1: the screen.
54:48
Speaker 2: It's like there's no intention in film. The sentence felt
54:50
Speaker 2: intentional definitely to me. All the money and made.
54:54
Speaker 6: Exactly black pans.
54:55
Speaker 7: I think that.
54:56
Speaker 6: I think there are films that are intentional now, a
54:59
Speaker 6: lot of them. I just think that just so much.
55:02
Speaker 6: You know, it's hard to back then. I'm gonna use
55:06
Speaker 6: this word loosely. I feel like there was a curation system.
55:09
Speaker 6: I don't know if it was curated or controlled. It's
55:14
Speaker 6: one of those, right, But I think there's so much
55:17
Speaker 6: to digest now, it's just you gotta it's hard to
55:20
Speaker 6: find it.
55:21
Speaker 2: But even with the control back then, why did it shift?
55:23
Speaker 1: Like everything we say we want black cinema to be
55:26
Speaker 1: now it was then.
55:27
Speaker 2: So what happened after the nineties.
55:29
Speaker 6: It created a new generation of billionaires. It was like,
55:32
Speaker 6: hold on, we didn't want you. How to get that motivated?
55:36
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
55:37
Speaker 7: I'm just saying things weren't green lighted, you know, I
55:40
Speaker 7: would say from a viewer perspective, you know, things was
55:45
Speaker 7: cook it cut once it proved to be successful, like freeends,
55:48
Speaker 7: stole from Living Saint, do it over, repudiated it.
55:53
Speaker 8: Over and over again, talk about it.
55:54
Speaker 7: You know, once it make money, let's do it again.
55:57
Speaker 7: Do it to the die, you know, And that's what
56:00
Speaker 7: we need people like you're laying to coves.
56:03
Speaker 10: I also think the celebrity to like the star appeal
56:06
Speaker 10: and the talent, the way that it's what do we like?
56:10
Speaker 10: I guess you would say developed is a lot different
56:12
Speaker 10: because I think when I watch you guys, like the
56:13
Speaker 10: younger you on screen in different movies, there's a certain
56:16
Speaker 10: thing about how you act that it's just like I
56:18
Speaker 10: can't I would never see that in another actor. But
56:20
Speaker 10: now I think people are super talented, but there's no
56:24
Speaker 10: like you know, you have so many ogs that helped
56:26
Speaker 10: you figure out what your voice was and you know
56:28
Speaker 10: what your movements were. I don't know if everybody gets
56:31
Speaker 10: that all the time now, and I think that's a
56:32
Speaker 10: part of it too. So you might have these amazing scripts,
56:34
Speaker 10: but some things just go swept under the rug because
56:36
Speaker 10: the characters don't.
56:38
Speaker 9: You don't live with them after the movie's over.
56:39
Speaker 6: Well, let me say something that's interesting what you just said.
56:42
Speaker 6: I think that people have to realize what you're doing
56:45
Speaker 6: is a craft. So this is what I want to say.
56:47
Speaker 6: It's like with what y'all do. Everybody think they could
56:50
Speaker 6: just open up it, put on the camera, get a mic,
56:53
Speaker 6: and just start talking. It's not what it is. It's
56:56
Speaker 6: night and day when we.
56:58
Speaker 3: Sitting with y'all.
56:59
Speaker 6: This is this is professionals, not because they say they are.
57:02
Speaker 6: Because if there's that thing that you're talking about, these
57:05
Speaker 6: people have worked at this.
57:06
Speaker 3: They know what they're doing.
57:08
Speaker 6: There's a difference between you know, Joe and Arkansas and
57:12
Speaker 6: people at Refs.
57:13
Speaker 2: Club, you know what I mean.
57:14
Speaker 6: And technology has given everyone a platform, so it seems
57:19
Speaker 6: like it's equalized the playing field. And I think even
57:22
Speaker 6: in what I do, everyone thinks they can act, but
57:25
Speaker 6: it's like, yo, we trained for this, went to school
57:27
Speaker 6: for this, and you might have a different path. You
57:29
Speaker 6: don't have to go my path or I didn't have
57:32
Speaker 6: to go to path or the ones before me. But
57:34
Speaker 6: you take it seriously enough to respect it. And it's
57:40
Speaker 6: unlike sports, right, Like sports, you have to play and
57:44
Speaker 6: you have to go through this thing to actually get better.
57:47
Speaker 6: Everybody can't get into the league though, you know what
57:49
Speaker 6: I mean? And I think that you know too. There's
57:52
Speaker 6: a difference between mediocrity, good and great and if we're
57:56
Speaker 6: aspiring for greatness. That's why I feel like the word
57:59
Speaker 6: legend is thrown around so much. And I'm like, when
58:02
Speaker 6: I was younger, like we reserve that for like now
58:05
Speaker 6: it's like everybody's and it's like.
58:09
Speaker 3: Sure years, tenure, I got tenure. Tenures mean something right the.
58:19
Speaker 9: Body of work, yeah, and the impact.
58:21
Speaker 3: But you know, I just think.
58:22
Speaker 6: That the younger generation take take themselves seriously enough and
58:26
Speaker 6: be patient with the process, you know what I mean,
58:28
Speaker 6: Especially when it comes to what I do. As far
58:31
Speaker 6: as acting, you got to have life in you. You
58:34
Speaker 6: gotta have experiences to be able to draw from.
58:37
Speaker 3: You gotta have.
58:37
Speaker 6: A an ocean of of emotions and just and that
58:43
Speaker 6: only comes with time, you know what I mean. And
58:45
Speaker 6: even though I started when I was really young, my
58:49
Speaker 6: seventeen was the average person's thirty because of where I
58:51
Speaker 6: come from and what I had seen in that small
58:53
Speaker 6: seventeen years, the average person will take thirty years the experience,
58:57
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. So again, everyone has their
58:59
Speaker 6: different journey. I don't want to knock the younger generation
59:01
Speaker 6: because I love them and I'm inspired by them, you know,
59:05
Speaker 6: but I acknowledge that difference.
59:07
Speaker 10: My last thing I'm gonna say is when I said
59:09
Speaker 10: earlier that your work now seems a little bit more personal,
59:12
Speaker 10: and hearing you say that, what I think it is
59:14
Speaker 10: is like the same way we felt about watching your
59:16
Speaker 10: earlier films and you had that life, the life that
59:19
Speaker 10: you have now. I think we're like getting like you're
59:22
Speaker 10: pulling the veil off of it through your new projects.
59:24
Speaker 10: And hear you say that right now, I'm like, Okay,
59:27
Speaker 10: this is like this is like round two of the
59:29
Speaker 10: iconic like omar EPs and it's it's you know, the
59:33
Speaker 10: intention is the focus is different of the intention, even
59:35
Speaker 10: though the intention has already been there.
59:36
Speaker 6: I like that, So I love to see it maturation.
59:40
Speaker 6: That's a good.
59:41
Speaker 5: Work, Elena.
59:44
Speaker 1: Uh.
59:44
Speaker 5: If you ever think about doing the story about Baltimore,
59:48
Speaker 5: I'm here, yes, because I'm already drawn to you by
59:55
Speaker 5: the name, you know, Papa Bitch. I love it.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I know.
1:00:06
Speaker 10: She said, you put back on your blanket and God
1:00:07
Speaker 10: tells you yes, that's.
1:00:12
Speaker 8: She got a documentary to do before you do anything else.
1:00:17
Speaker 4: She look at me. He wanted me to do that,
1:00:22
Speaker 4: which I'll be very happy. I mean, in in lights,
1:00:25
Speaker 4: to show how this all started, and to show the
1:00:29
Speaker 4: light at the end of the time. There's always the
1:00:32
Speaker 4: light at the end of the time. That's the purpose
1:00:34
Speaker 4: of all of this that we're doing.
1:00:36
Speaker 6: That's the key is for a generation it feels hopeless.
1:00:40
Speaker 6: There's always there's always hope.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Man.
1:00:42
Speaker 6: You have to it's it might not be right there
1:00:45
Speaker 6: in front of you, but you have to have that
1:00:48
Speaker 6: there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
1:00:50
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
1:00:51
Speaker 7: And I like to say, as a white woman, she
1:00:53
Speaker 7: wasn't afraid of my jewelry. Most people be like I said, listen,
1:00:58
Speaker 7: I will stay in this still ten years latie and
1:01:01
Speaker 7: nothing so transformed this to double and I'm on.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: My list go out there and supporting Moses to Black
1:01:11
Speaker 1: in theaters right now. I mean, check your local listeners.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: I just checked local listeners in New York and they
1:01:15
Speaker 1: definitely got some showing, so.
1:01:16
Speaker 2: All around the country.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: Man, make sure you just go google Moses to Black
1:01:20
Speaker 1: and see where it's at in theaters.
1:01:21
Speaker 2: You want to say something, that's it.
1:01:23
Speaker 4: I just want to say to my Chicago listeners on.
1:01:25
Speaker 11: Bro Bront turn your Lana Popovich out, Legend of Keen
1:01:36
Speaker 11: Barry Senior, Elena Papach on mys Man, thank you all
1:01:39
Speaker 11: for coming.
1:01:39
Speaker 8: Thank you sell I appreciate it.
1:01:41
Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club.