Latest / Coconut Justice / CJP #52: Jiba Molei Anderson
Transcript
- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey everybody, Jibba's here. I wanted to introduce you to of the most creative people I've ever met, Jiba Molei Anderson. ⁓ Sir, hi. So, ⁓ you guys, had to cut off because every time we get to talking, it just continues to go and he just continues to drop knowledge. Hey, what's good? Jiba Molei Anderson is an illustrator, designer, writer, educator, publisher, and the owner of his own independent comic book company called Griot Enterprises. He's the perfect reminder to creatives to own your own masters. Personally, I've called Jiba a dear friend of mine for over 20 years. This is my conversation with Jiba Molei Anderson. Jiba Molei Anderson: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing me. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And I wanted you guys to be a part of that. So, Jibba, welcome to the channel. Jiba Molei Anderson: Thank you for having me, Carlos. It's been a minute, you know, it's always a pleasure to chop it up with you, Always a pleasure. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Before we get into it, remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Yeah. I want to say the last time I saw you was on the L in Chicago. Yeah. I was sitting there and then some dude was like staring at me funny. So I looked up and it was you. And I was like, Oh, thank God. Cause I didn't have the energy to knock anybody out. Jiba Molei Anderson: In person? Okay. I'm not trying to get accidentally swung on, alright? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha! Ha! Yeah, and your face always brings me peace. Just because I know, I know, I know the person that you are and the person that you're trying to be. Jiba Molei Anderson: Cool. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ With that being said, tell the people who you are. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. Yeah, because Carlos knows me, but for the rest of y'all, my name is Jebamale Anderson. I am an artist, writer, ⁓ designer, and educator and publisher ⁓ for the company Griot Enterprises, which is my company. ⁓ I'm also the creator of its flagship title, The Horseman, and the curator of the four pages, 16 bars of visual mixtape anthology series. which has been the longest running anthology series focusing on independent works from creators of color. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Excellent. And ⁓ we met because we both worked at, were you working at Illinois Institute of Art ⁓ when I was in school or did we meet when I was working there? Okay. Okay. Yeah. And that's, that's like a lifetime. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yep. We met when you were working there. Yeah. Yeah, I think. That's such a lifetime ago the school doesn't even exist anymore You know it's all like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They knocked down the building and everything. Hahaha! You know what's funny is like it was Ernesto and Jared and like all these folks that we used to go to school with and hang out with and work with like all of them were sending me pictures of them knocking this building down. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's just gone. I, I still have former students like hitting me up every once in a blue moon. It's like school is gone. I'm like, yeah, it's gone. It's gone. You're right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): All the way going. You can park on it. Jiba Molei Anderson: But where it used to be. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ So let me tell you this. I did that 23andMe thing and it told me that I had quite a bit of West African in me. And I said, get out. No, I'm kidding. ⁓ And through that, ⁓ there's a term that ⁓ you've been using that, again, I learned and I identify with, and that's griot. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And so ⁓ explain to folks what a griot is. Jiba Molei Anderson: quite simply, Agrio is a storyteller. That is the name for ⁓ these people ⁓ from Ghana and what they would do, they would be the caretakers of a region's history. And they would go from place to place, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: people to people, would say community to community, not tribe to tribe. And they would go about telling stories, right, about the history of the people and the stories because it's living history. mean, it would adapt and it would change and it would adjust itself to the needs of the people that these storytellers were speaking to. And so when it came time for me, lo these many years ago, to name my company and my brand, I had to go back home, if you will. had to go back to the source. Because at the end of the day, that's what I do. You I talked about all those slashes and stuff like that. But what it boils down to is that I'm a storyteller. And so that is that is my purpose ⁓ in everything I do, whether it's when I'm making comics, whether it's when I'm teaching a class, whether I'm doing a new mix for my for my podcast radio show, Ghetto of the Mind. It's like I'm always telling stories. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: and giving the people not necessarily what they want, but hopefully what they need. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Tell me more about ghetto of the mind. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ so, Ghetto of the Mind, that's just... Back in my undergrad days, ⁓ I had a radio show on WCBN, FM, and Ann Arbor from midnight to three. And ⁓ that show was titled Ghetto of the Mind after ⁓ the classic track Ghetto's of the Mind by P-Rock and C.O. Smooth. And so that was just... That just became the title of my radio show. ⁓ I was in my hip hop bag, then in my jazz bag, like my R &B bag, I was all about just creating this soundscape because the whole philosophy is that the ghetto is not a place, it's a culture. It's not a negative culture. So showing the beauty of that culture. then years later, mean, this is what happens when you are Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: like nested in like the Detroit techno and then later the Chicago house music scene like you're around all these DJs and you wind up picking it up again and so it was like god I'm almost it's almost been 20 years of that so I started doing a podcast on iTunes and it's a straight-up mix tape you know what I mean so ghetto yeah ghetto of the mind you can find it on iTunes Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha. ⁓ don't. Jiba Molei Anderson: Last episode that the most recent episode that's up there right now, Defiance, that's all hip hop. ⁓ If you go back a couple of episodes and they're up there right now, the episode titled Anderson ⁓ in parentheses, Jibba's Groove, that's me going back to making beats. So that's all like original, you know, that's me getting back in my sampling bag and making beats again and stuff like that. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ nice. That's cool. Do you know? ⁓ Man, I went to go say his name and it just straight up jumped out of my head. Pugs. Pugs Adams. Jiba Molei Anderson: I know of Pugs Adams, I don't know Pugs personally. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, he's coming on the show tomorrow. We're recording tomorrow. ⁓ And it's this the more you talk, the more I think you guys need to connect. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. Gotcha. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Cause he's just like that. He makes music. He just came out with a new album that is straight fire. ⁓ And he paints and he draws and he does fashion and he's one of the more creative people that I know. So we might have to make that little connection just to see. And he's in Chicago. He's based in Chicago. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ right on. Yeah. I'm always open to connecting with other creatives and stuff like that, chopping it up. See what comes of it. You know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. ⁓ So, Ghetto ⁓ of the Mind podcast, you said that you went from Detroit to Chicago. You're originally from Detroit. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, born and raised in Detroit. So, yeah, born and raised. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How you feel about, are you still rooting for lions or do you Bears guy? Jiba Molei Anderson: See, I'm not a sports guy in general, I, know, the Lions. The Lions are like what the Cubs kind of used to be in Chicago. Like, you know, like, like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you're gonna get your ass whooped every Thanksgiving? Jiba Molei Anderson: But it's like, one of the recent years, like, y'all so close, but yet so far. Damn. I feel like, like, come on. Just one time, come on, you know? It happened again this year. Like, come on, man. Come on, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Yeah. and we got Ben Johnson. The bears are going to be a problem for a while now. I'm excited. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay, okay. Well, you know, they're discussing like trying to move the Bears to Indiana. I'm like, that's not cool. Or even, I'm sorry, even try to bring them up to Arlington Heights. I'm like, come on now, come on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that's going to be the worst decision they make. They need to go ahead and figure that out. Yeah, see, I'm a little more flexible with Arlington Heights because from what I understand, they're trying to build the same aura as Wrigleyville. When you go to Wrigleyville, it's, it's, know, you can party, you go to the game and you go and you finish partying after the game. Right. And everything is in a controlled area. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Right, Just like how Detroit is now with all their sports teams. Like, yeah, with all their sports teams. like, you know, you go play, you know, go watch basketball game, football game, then you can step out of Woodward, you know what I mean? And you can... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: you know, go up and down, you know, downtown, you know, Detroit and like hit up the shit up the strip and, know, get your get your party on and talking about my hometown right now. Downtown Detroit, it's kind of got downtown Chicago beat right now. Yeah, just just in terms of vibe, just visually, you know, because, you know, I'm the son of an architect. So architecture like You what I'm saying? All about it. But just the way that Detroit has really, really stepped its design game up, like its city design game. You can go down corridors and explore stuff, and then there's street art up there. It's real. It's real. It's real sexy. It's real sexy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. nice. Back when I was at Leo Burnett, ⁓ I don't even remember who it was, but I got an email from someone in Detroit, in the government of Detroit saying, ⁓ if you move to Detroit, we'll help you start a creative business. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And I was like, yeah, but that's Detroit. ⁓ But this is back when Detroit was trying to come back from all the automobiles manufacturing stuff. That was like after... Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Right. So this was like early, what, late 90s, early aughts? That kind of, yeah. So yeah, cause around that time, I mean, that's when I was really coming up in that scene and that creative scene before I moved to Chicago and even after I moved to Chicago. know, Detroit has always had like that underground creative flavor that people like, you know, people who knew. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: knew about like how cool Detroit was, but you know, people on the outside, they're like, Detroit. And so Detroit has had like that, like I said, like that underground, like, you know, artists artists vibe, and it's really, really coming up in, you know, it still has that and I would have to say even after all the years I've been in Chicago, and at the point that Chicago has Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: claimed me ⁓ in a way ⁓ artistically, my roots are still, as an artist, it's still very Detroit, you know what mean? Detroit ⁓ minded and in terms of ⁓ the vision and stuff like that, which is really cool. And yeah, a lot ⁓ of things have sprung up creatively from Detroit since that time that you were speaking about, which is lovely to see, you know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: And yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I've always I've been to Detroit like maybe once, but I've always respected Detroit. You know, I I'll dog them because I dog everybody, but but it's all in fun. You know, it's like a brotherly thing. You know, so when when Detroit started making the comeback, like the city, Detroit. Jiba Molei Anderson: Even. All right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Definitely. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It made me feel good because just because every folks from Detroit, whether it's Jibba, whether it's Eminem, whether it's whomever, it's always they're always well, I guess the ones that I pay attention to are a little more on the creative side, but they're always like hella cool. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's kind of how Detroit is. I mean, in terms of the creative community, ⁓ the ⁓ degrees of separation are very, very small, right? So like, for instance, you mentioned Eminem, you know. ⁓ I'm like, one degree of separation from him because of the scene. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: because of like even crazy stuff like me working at this clothing store, know, Spectacles way back in the day before I moved in through Spectacles meeting one of the cats who working at the hip hop shop. And he was mad at dudes working at the hip hop shop. And he's trying to get them straight now. And I said some things he's like, well, why don't you come to this meeting? You know, and I'm in this meeting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm. Jiba Molei Anderson: and like, you know, one of the employees is proof, you know, like, and I'm here, like, I'm an employee from somebody else, but I'm here and you know, with Maurice Malone's crew, like, tell them like, no, you need to step up your game business wise, blah, blah, blah. You know I'm saying? It's like, you know, like I know the poet laureate of Detroit because we came up together doing slam poetry at Pory Mee Cafe and now Jessica Care Moore has done her thing and she's the poet laureate of Detroit. And I'm like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, that's my, you know, that's the homie. And she's also tight with like my cousin. I mean, you know, that's just how, that's just how Detroit is, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: in terms of that creative community. it's like when people are shining, every time I see somebody come up from the deep, know, it's, I take it personally because it's like, yeah, we all came up together. You know what I'm saying? Like we came up together, we were in the same spaces together. It's like we all influenced each other. ⁓ So it's beautiful. It's beautiful to see. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that struggle always makes those bonds tighter. Cause we're talking about this, we're talking about this before we hit record. were talking about, do you, people in general. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right, right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): talking about, ⁓ I'm going to go get that bag. I'm to go get that bag. But then you have the people that are money hungry. And do you want to be money rich or do you want to be culture rich? Community rich. Jiba Molei Anderson: Maybe. community rich that's what we want. Right, right, that's what we were talking about. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'd like to find the sweet spot in the middle. I want to be rich with a lot of friends that are creative. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, sweet spot. That sweet spot. And the thing about that sweet spot, right, is that it's so attainable, you know, and it's so there, right? Like, you know, if you look at Hollywood, I look at like certain people who work together all the time. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: case in point, Ryan Coogler and his crew, you know. to them. Yeah, congrats to him, congrats to everything that he's done, congrats to Sinners, which was the best film of the year. But the thing about it is, and I've noticed this with a number of creatives, it's like, you work with your crew, you know what mean? And like, those are peoples, you know what I mean? Like Spike Lee is one of those dudes that was like that, you know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): such a wonderful example. Yes. Yeah. Right. Jiba Molei Anderson: uh my man um boys in the hood john singleton you know what i mean uh had people he was riffing off of like christopher guest and that crew you know like the mighty wind crew and spinal tap and stuff like that like you can Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Seth, is it Seth Rogen? He's Jiba Molei Anderson: Seth Rogen, yeah, he's got his band, ⁓ Judd Apatow had his band, it's ⁓ that they're always working with, right? And you see that, and I see that too in the comic book industry. I definitely have ⁓ fomented a community of people that we just kick it with above and beyond. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: you know, wherever, where somebody is at in the industry or what they're doing. I mean, we give each other, we give each other our flowers, but it's like, you know, also like when we're doing conventions and stuff like that, you know, me personally, it's like, I try to make a point. like, let's see how many of us can come together and break bread and just, you know, talk shit and just eat. You know what I'm saying? And, ⁓ and that part. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: is really, cool. Like that part is really fun. And that's one of the things that I enjoy and that I wanted out of the comic book industry. It's like I wanted that sense of community. And I wanted it with some of the baddest motherfuckers in the business. You know what I'm saying? Like, and ⁓ just, you know, knowing these, knowing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: these men and women and stuff like that and all of us like kind of like pushing each other to be great. And to find that is a beautiful thing. And that's what we're talking about being community rich, you know what I'm saying? As opposed to economically rich, because you know, yes, we were talking about before it's like, I want to get paid. You know, I want a couple of I want a couple of extra positive zeros in my bank account, right? But Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: I don't need to be rich. I definitely don't need to be morbidly rich. You know what I'm saying? Because, ⁓ I mean, you see the people going after the bag and at a certain point, all it is is the bag. You can tell that they're not happy. Like Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and that motherfucker is not happy at all. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And who can you trust? Let's be honest, who can you trust? Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. And part of that is, I think it's tied into how you made your money. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, you can't be up there without having pissed off at least two, three people. Jiba Molei Anderson: You see what I mean? Minimal. It's minimal. Right? Like piss them off to the point they become either you're the supervillain or they become a supervillain. Like I'm just straight up cursing. Like I'm gonna never get you. If it's the last thing I ever do. Yeah. Like, I don't need. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Right. Right. Yeah. Because like for me is like, if you're going to have that much money and that, and even more than money, you're going to have that much influence. And we still got, still got so many homeless people. We still got so many dummies. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What are we doing? US is right. We're walking around talking about how wonderful we are. Everybody's reading at fifth to sixth grade levels. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ Lord Jesus Christ. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): with zero creativity. Jiba Molei Anderson: Don't, ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): As I speak to an educator. Jiba Molei Anderson: And then it's like, our conversation right there. You know what I'm saying? Like, to break all that down, that's gonna get us both in trouble. Because, of Jesus, law of Jesus. And at this stage of the game too, with the, the fuckery is in your face. It is so in your face. And to still have people be that delusional. You know what I mean? About their decision, about their decision. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, they say, yeah, he's a clown, but he's our clown. Jiba Molei Anderson: I don't want that clown. I don't want to be around clowns. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't want to be around clowns. We got serious business to get to. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly, like, fuck a Pennywise. You know what mean? Like the only clown I kind of want to be around is homie. And that's it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, and my nostalgic attachment to bozo. I'll take bozo. But homie, homie would have to control bozo. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Right. And homey wood. ⁓ Because think about the clowns. mean, aside from homie and pozo, think about the clowns, right? Pennywise. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: The Joker. Krusty. You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sideshow Bob ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: I'm gonna even throw Ronald up in that bitch. Like, like, like... No, what? You're ready! You're ready! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ronald giving people high cholesterol. Come on son. Jiba Molei Anderson: They talk about sending in the clowns. No, the clowns can go elsewhere. How about that? Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): When you're, so when you've been ⁓ building your momentum and your circle of ⁓ misfits, was it that you called it? Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ just, ⁓ no, my, people's, you know what I mean? That's my, my tribe or my pride, if you will. I'm a Leo. So it's like pride, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You hear people? Yeah. Maw, you Leos can't let that shit go. Leos are just upset that they're not Aries. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what? lord, okay, alright. Fireside, fireside, be fucking here for like... We'll just burn it all. We'll burn it all. Whatever. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ my God, I miss you so much. I miss you so much. ⁓ So when you're when you're, ⁓ you know, working with with your with your pride, ⁓ do you find social media helping? Or does it hurt? Jiba Molei Anderson: Maybe. So, I would say this. Social media helped me find other members of my pride. Okay? ⁓ Also social media lets you know like not everybody can come. That's for sure. Because what people don't realize or what they forget is like when you're using your social media like too many people show their entire ass. you know what saying? On social media. And they think they're being anonymous. And they think they're being anonymous because it's social media. But it's like someone who's drunk. You know what I mean? Like alcohol is truth syrup. Like this is you that we're seeing out there. Right? And so it's like with people that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the whole thing. Jiba Molei Anderson: I may be interested in meeting or even working with, it's like, I spend some time observing how they navigate that social media space. You know what saying? And it's like, okay, I'm, cause I'm seeing who you are. And if I can't get with who you are, then we can, you know, have a conversation and hopefully it becomes something deeper, right? Because a number of cats who become really good friends of mine, we met on social media. And especially in the business. For example, my guy, Fabrice Sapolsky, owner of FairSquare Graphics, right? His company. We were online, you know, for a number of years, like, one of the things, oh yeah, I like what you do, man. Oh, I like what you do. Yeah, that's kind of cool, right? And then a couple of years ago at C2E2, which is coming up next week in Chicago, I saw that he was there. And so we had a chance to meet and I walked over to his booth and it was like immediately like hands on stretch. He's like, Jibba, my friend, French Jewish dude. And we embraced immediately and like immediately we became homeless. You know what I'm saying? Because. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha Jiba Molei Anderson: again on social media, like, you know, we're seeing what the other is doing. And we also see that we have the same mindset, you know, the same. So that when we met in person, it was just like all my popcorn, you know what I mean? That sort of thing. So in that social media can be cool. And I think it was cooler. It was cooler 10 years ago. You know, before. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: like a lot of the algorithm and the negativity got into place. Cause I got a girlfriend or two out of social media, like a long distance girl, like girl from London, know what mean? South Africa, from London as a girlfriend, cause of social media. That's like when it was cool and honest before all the catfishing, you know what I mean? And all of the negative algorithm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what mean? in. Right, right, right, right. When it was like social media instead of now, you know, people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and all the thirst traps. social manipulation. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yes, they're trying, you know what I'm saying? They're trying and if you are not ⁓ aware, right? If you are not ⁓ media savvy, which most of the people in this country are not, you know what saying? ⁓ It is easy to get duped, you know? And also, let's be honest, a lot of people want to be duped. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they leave that door open because, you know, they need that confirmation bias of their thought process and things of that nature. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They leave that door open, Yeah. And for what? Generally speaking is because they're after that bag. Jiba Molei Anderson: It's either they're after that bag or they're after that validation that they don't get in their life outside of the internet. Like they don't get that self-validation. Less validation from others. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Cause online you could become literally whoever you want. Jiba Molei Anderson: You can, but the thing is that... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): or you can tell people who you are. That's better said, I think. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, you know, right, right. And because the thing about it is like most people are not good actors. So even so even if they try to create a persona, you know what mean, of who they are, it's like they're the reality of the who of who they are always seeks through, you know, and I'm saying this as someone who has done theater in their life and has been on stage in their life and. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: It's like, ⁓ yeah, acting is good only so much, you know, the best actors, and one of reasons why they're some of the best actors is because they find a piece of themselves in the world that they play. And so they can take that aspect of themselves and, you know, transfer it to that world. ⁓ Most people can't do that. So even if they're trying to act like there's somebody big and bad, it's like the cracks fall through and it's just like, yeah, not. You know what saying? Nice try. But... not. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Let's go ⁓ to ⁓ Young Jibba in Detroit. What was it that got you into being a creative person? Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. I was born into a creative family. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yes, I love it. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, mean, dad's an architect. know what I mean? ⁓ Mom is ill with the sewing and the craft work and with the baking and the cooking. ⁓ On my mom's side of the family, crap load of artists, singers and actors, you know what I'm saying? Musicians. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Amazing. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ you know, same on, on that side. So I was born into it. I say that I was like genetically bred to be, you know, either an artist or an educator. And I wound up doing both, but I don't mind like my. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Of course, because you're an overachiever. Jiba Molei Anderson: Well, I don't mind the programming, but I don't mind the coding. Sweet, good job. ⁓ I was always ⁓ in that incubator and always encouraged to be in that incubator. It helps immensely. I tell everybody who will listen, I am so glad to be born into the family I was born into. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That helps. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: you know, for the career path that I've chosen. And then on top of that, like all of my siblings are creatives as well, you know? ⁓ Yeah, so it's like, like my younger brother, recently he's gotten back into, you know, ⁓ back into fine art and he's doing like these collage pieces and his technique and stuff like that. And I'm like, that's, that's, that's pretty dope. And ⁓ And it's so ironic because he was the one who first went digital way back in the early 90s when I was still studying to ultimately be in comics and stuff like that. And at the time, when much younger, this is like me 19, 20, him 17, 18, and me saying it's like, you know, no, I'm not going to go digital. Like I'm going to be a traditional artist in Come all these years later, we like switch roles and like, it's like, you know what saying? Can't be mad at it. Can't be mad at it because it's all, it's all part of that. You know, again, we're all in that incubator and stuff like, and it's also, it also really helps as well because it's like when your father and your siblings, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yup. Jiba Molei Anderson: are all artists. Like we can all critique each other's shit and not blow smoke up each other's ass. So we're always making sure that, you know, we're all at the top of our game, which is great. that leads, so that also leads into like, you know, people online calling themselves critics and stuff like that. It's like, fuck out of here. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. How are you going to criticize something you don't even know how the process works? Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what saying? Like, you try to say, well, you can play. You know what saying? Like, yeah, yeah, that sort of thing. so yeah, so that's young, that's young. Jib was in that incubator, you know, young Jib was a nerd. Old Jib still is a nerd. Just, you know, cool about it, you know, became a cool nerd before people, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: thought being a nerd was a cool thing. It's like, again, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You may be in the nerd look cool. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, right. Exactly. Because you had to be diverse back in the day. You know what I'm saying? You had to, like, you know, when I was a teenager, when I was when I was 13 going on 14, again, having that, we were talking a little earlier every seven years, you have an epiphany, right? Like that next level. So me 13 going into 14, which was me going into high school, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: I did a self-assessment and I was like, okay, what do you have going on? It's like, all right, you're short, you're overweight, you are so much of a nerd that you don't even carry your pens and pencils in a pocket protector. You carry them in your glasses case. So for all intents and purposes, no girl would ever want to date you. So, okay, so how do we counteract that? Well, for me, I'm like, okay, know, do it by, I get my, what's now known as a SWAT analysis, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You better start drawing pictures. Jiba Molei Anderson: I laid out my weaknesses, right? So like, okay, so what are my strengths? You know what I mean? And again, this is the 80s. So I'm like, word, I can dance. That's number one, because back in the 80s, you know what mean? A brother who knows how to dance. Exactly. Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know? Shit. Hey, people laugh. When I was in the Army, I was in a dance crew. We were practicing. Jiba Molei Anderson: Dog. When I was an undergrad, I was briefly a backup dancer for this white rapper. We'll talk about that later. Anyway. So I was like, I'm right. Yeah. So anyway. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We are not gonna not touch that later. Let's go. Jiba Molei Anderson: That's right. I threw that out there. So I was like, okay, I can dance. And then I'm like, all right, what I also need to do is work on the personality. You know what I mean? Like work on being that good dude, right? So that, you know, girls will want to be around, you know, to be a track, you know, to attract that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure, yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: that sort of thing. you know, I worked on that. So it was like when I was in high school, ⁓ you know, it wasn't until like I shot up like my junior year to get the thin out. You know what I mean? ⁓ That I started going on dates, but I always had girls around me. I always had, you know, young women around me and also being in the theater. you know, that helped, especially going to an all boys school. So they had to the girls in through, you know what I'm saying? Through the sister schools. And then it didn't hurt that even in Detroit, being in an all boys Jesuit school, we had some of the illest DJs. So whenever we had our monthly dances, like all the high schools, you know, we'd come to a U of high party because it was setting it off. So those combined, you know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: had me all right and then when I went into college and stuff like that, that's when stuff blossomed, right? But at the same time in my nerd brain, you know, I'm not thinking like I'm not thinking like I'm physically cute, you know what I mean? I'm thinking like if a girl is interested in me it's because she's interested in my mind, you know what I mean? Like I charmed her. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's how I feel about myself too. Like, I can make you laugh. Jiba Molei Anderson: And it was ⁓ recently I'm looking back at old photos of myself like ⁓ wait a minute. ⁓ I guess I was kind of cute. Okay. All right. I'm glad I didn't know that back Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha No, always tell people I always had negative reinforcement, right? So for example, I was in basic training and I had what the, you know, the army glasses, those are called birth control glasses. Jiba Molei Anderson: You Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Cause with those glasses on you ain't get nothing. And I'm in the foxhole and one of the drill sergeants ⁓ who was a female came up and she looked at me and she said, God damn private, you sure are ugly. And I was like, I gotta work on these jokes then. ⁓ I gotta make somebody giggle, otherwise this is gonna be a long life. Jiba Molei Anderson: Alright. Alright, she came at you straight up like a colored bird. She came and she was you're receiving, god damn. ⁓ Like she was shook, like you were seely up in this piece shit. That was probably her girl way of saying like, you cute. That was probably that. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What did I do to you? That is abuse, young lady. Yeah, maybe, but at 17, that shit hit like a. Jiba Molei Anderson: I'm sure it did. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Like, Mom, what did you do to me? ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, I don't know how to do that one. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): My ugly broke through the glasses. She didn't even see the glasses. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ in the words of Edith, those were the days. Okay. ⁓ man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and this is back when, this is back when like you had to have game. Like these kids, these kids these days, they have it so easy. You swipe left and all of a sudden it's, you're knocking boots already. Like we used to have to work. Jiba Molei Anderson: You had to. But you know what? Right, but you know what? ⁓ It's not that easy for them because like, again, seeing in these internet streets, right? And seeing these dudes in Lord Jesus, the Manosphere, that bullshit. But it's like dudes have become so lazy. Right. And the whole notion about it is. It's just like the animal kingdom, right? Like dudes don't choose the women. Women choose the men. Like the most you can do as a dude, like I'm looking at or I'm reminded of, you know, that that series on National Geographic about earth and stuff like that and seeing the rituals and like, you know, talk about the birds and things like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. the birds bouncing around. ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ And then fly off. mean, it's like, it's, it's, it's always been like that. Right? And dudes have gotten so lazy because of the swipe left. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, your house is a mess. Later. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: that they don't, it's like, and on top of that, that yes, know, women don't need you, but women want you. So how are you going to be the type of dude that they want? And a lot of these cats, again, talk about the Manosphere, they're always looking at the wrong shit. Like with the Manosphere, I think of it as like bullies teaching the people who've been bullied on, you know what I mean? That they bully, right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How to be bullies. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: how to be bullied and you never learn from that and then you wind up you know you're part of that grift right that grift of loneliness and stuff like that and it's like nah you know it's like you have to work at it i mean we did a we did a podcast years ago we talked about the cons and stuff like that you know it's like nah dude you like you need to wash your ass Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ha Jiba Molei Anderson: You need to use the other way. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, you can't be out in the streets with yuck mouth Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, you need to brush your teeth, you know what I'm saying? You need to find clothes that fit you, you know, and not talk about comic books all the goddamn time. And then on top of that, right? On top of that, especially in this nerd space, it's like now you got the girls out there and they are free to be themselves and nerd girls are so cute, you know what I'm saying? And it's like when we were Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: in high school and stuff like that, you know, finding a girl like that is like finding a unicorn, right? Right! And now unicorns are everywhere, but y'all still fucking up. Like, come on, man. Come on, man. And I get it, I get it. It's like, in general, in general, guys are scared of girls, because they're scared of that rejection, right? But it's like... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you better hang on tight. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: as we know, we're coming up, it's like, you know, you get shot down, you get back up, you dust yourself off, you know what I mean? You try, right? Like, she wasn't- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Every, every, every no you collect, it gets a little easier to accept. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. And then you'll get that yes. You know what I mean? And you will get that yes from that person who wants to be with you. Right? And that's the... This is me being old. That's the important thing. Right? It's like a lot of dudes or you see young guys, you know, they want to get the girl to impress their boys. Right? They want to get the kind of girl that, you know, their boys be like, damn. I wish, you know, instead of like, you know, who's the girl for you? Like later, later for what they think. You know what mean? It's like the end of the day. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And even then, and even then, why does it matter? It has to make sense to you. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Like, yeah, the relationship is between you and that other person. You know what saying? It's not between anybody else. And the thing at the end of the day, it's like if you are in that other person name clicking, know, there's where the problem is. Right. But in that, again, you have to be you have to be the kind of person that the person that you want to attract would be attracted to. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. And let's say, let's say you got that girl that was just an angel sent from heaven. She is just absolutely a 10.5 out of 10, but you guys aren't connected the way that you're supposed to be. Now you got to worry about all those homies that you try to impress. All of those idiots are going to hit on her. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah, you know what? Yeah. Because, yeah, I mean, being been there, you know what I'm saying? Been there, done that, right? I mean, first, well, first of all, the person that you with is going to play the olive oil role. You know what I'm saying? And you always have to be Popeye. You ain't supposed to be with her anyway. To be able to, you know, so that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: That's a mistake on your fault. That's your fault. That's your mistake. Because you were looking at the wrong things. You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): or ⁓ you're trying hard on something that ain't even supposed to happen. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly. Exactly. Right. And, you know, like I said, I mean, throughout my life, again, looking at my dating history, was like, I was like, hey, was in baddies. Like, how did I do that? ⁓ Right. I'm like, how did I work that out? Like, look, looking at my history, like, first of all, having a history. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: Second of all, looking at a level of my history and ⁓ the people that I've had the pleasure of being with. I was just like, man, you did all right for yourself. I don't know how you did it, but on you. And I say I don't know how you did it because in terms of what the Manosphere values, it's like. I'm the antithesis of that. And so I've done way better than all these little other dudes that, you know, these, yeah, bums that, you know, people are following, right? It's like, y'all got the game. It's not that they got the game fucked up is that they are purposely ⁓ misrepresenting the game. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Bums. Jiba Molei Anderson: So it's like to create this endless cycle of just like, just... ⁓ low self-esteem. right, and just misery, which really, really sucks. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It don't help you. It's not helping you be a better person. And the only way to get to the people that you want to hang out with is getting you work on yourself because that's what you can control. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Stop being so goddamn thirsty. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, drink some water. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahahaha Jiba Molei Anderson: Like, outside, touch grass. You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nature fixes so many things. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Like man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So many things. Just go outside and take a walk. You'll be fine. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Yeah, for real, for real. mean, if need be, take a gummy before you go out for that walk. You know, enjoy yourself. You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Connect with yourself. And then when you're comfortable with yourself and you know how to express yourself like a goddamn human. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): people will be attracted to that. And you'll see building relationships, whether it's the romantic kind or the creative kind, it becomes easier because people like stability. It's fun hanging out with those folks that are wild, but you can only do that for a little while. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, friendship. And not even that long. know what I mean? Right. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know what I'm saying? I'm at that point in my life. Like you got till about five o'clock after dinner and then I need some downtime. I need alone time. I need reading time. Go outside and you know, make some smoke time. Jiba Molei Anderson: away from this. Right exactly. Just those moments yeah like yeah them them wild people like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, no, I don't have that much in. Jiba Molei Anderson: No, no, I was in a situation ⁓ like that two weeks ago. It was a moment. I was at this conference, ⁓ my hip-hop conference at the University of Texas at Austin. And he won't mind me telling this story in a podcast. I was with my friend Corey Davis. Corey Davis is the owner of Rock Bottom Studios. ⁓ which is becoming like the largest animation studio, ⁓ African American owned animation studio in the country. anyway, ⁓ and there's a title for this story too. The title for the story is Blue Blazers, Brown Liquor, and Brazilians. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ cool. I was like, all right. And then you said brown liquor. was like, here we go. Jiba Molei Anderson: I'm like, okay, the only thing about this story is like, should I be naming names? ⁓ Because. All right, I'm gonna try to keep it as anonymous as possible to protect the guilty. Corey and I, it was the Saturday night of the second day of the conference, right? And we were having dinner with, ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: friends and colleagues and we were talking all this big shit about doing karaoke afterwards, right? Because we enjoy karaoke. Anyway, as the night goes on, like my voice is getting a little hoarse and you're thinking about people are like, you know, kind of falling off like I need to get back to the hotel because tomorrow for the last day, blah, blah, blah. And so Corey and I were kind of like, are we really going to do karaoke tonight? He's like, I don't know. I'm like, oh, let's go get a drink and let's go see what happens. Okay, you know, we'll make a decision, right? So we got dropped off near his hotel and we were walking around downtown Austin. And we wound up at this bar. Okay. And you know, we had a, he had a drink or two and we were just shooting the shit. And then at a certain point I'm like, yeah, let's step outside because you know, also had some smoky smoke. So I like, I'm gonna step out and smoke something. Okay. So was like, cool. So we are ⁓ outside of the bar. ⁓ just to get the blazer thing in there, not the blue blazer yet, but it was like I was wearing my Tweed blazer, and Corey was wearing his black leather blazer. This is important because this is how the story begins. So we're out there. talking business, you know what I mean? Like swapping horror stories about potential clients with very, very, very, very bad movie ideas. Very bad. very bad, very bad, right? I mean, to the point of like, I'm lamenting like, why is it like, dudes, they got the money, but zero ideas and they just don't, I mean, I don't need that much. You know what saying? Like, anyway, yeah. So while we're out there and while we're talking, know, a couple of people thought, you know, we were the bodyguards at the bar, we're like, no, but anyway, fine, you know, and. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know what I'm saying. Jiba Molei Anderson: But ⁓ at a certain point, there was, this is where the Brazilian comes in, there was this very cute Brazilian girl, right? And she was like, excuse me, excuse me, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, I don't mean to interrupt you, but she goes to Corey, she's like, but I love your blazer, ⁓ my God, that blazer looks so good, it looks so good on you, you know? She's like, ⁓ well, thank you. Thank you very much. You know what mean? She's like, ⁓ you guys look so good. She's like, because people don't dress, you know, so on and so forth. So they don't dress like that. You guys came out here looking good. We're like, OK, well, thank you. Thank you very much. Right. So this is the Brazilian. Right. And she's there with come to find out. Well, she's definitely there with IPBIT already. Her best gay. Right. and then also her husband. Okay. And we, you know, me and her husband. Okay. And you know, nice guy. He's got a very Texan name. But again, I'm withholding names, you know, like the guilty. But he doesn't look like the name he has, right. But at the same time, I'm like, okay, it's Texas, you know what mean? So we're just, you know, we're talking, right. And ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know, and we asked, you know, we asked the Brazilian and her husband, like, what do you think that we do? Because it was like right before South by Southwest. Right. And so, ⁓ you know, we tell them what we do and they're like, ⁓ my God, it's, know, it's so cool. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, we're having this like sort of creative discussion a little bit. OK. This is where the blue blazer and the brown lick. come into the situation. ⁓ while we're talking, two other women walk up, know, two of them, you know, two sisters walking up, right? One of them is like very like, you know, ⁓ out in the open like, right? The other one is definitely a stud. She looks like Lori Lightfoot's little sister. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know, the former mayor of Chicago, like literally, literally. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: She got on the blue blazer and she's got the brown liquor in a plastic cup outside, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Here we go. Jiba Molei Anderson: And you know, know, when people start drinking, you know how they like, you know, want to get all close to you, like mention stuff, right? You know how they leave, they leave liquor in the back of it. Yeah, that's Lori Lightfoot. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm hmm. Everybody gets friendly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: She's not up in the conversation, but she's in and out there just roaming around. But her friend, her girl, Flower Child, she winds up, a burlesque dance, or she says that she produces a burlesque show. Later on, Corey, she's in the show, and I'm like, yeah, okay, probably. Anyway. I'm again and when she tells me her name I'm not gonna reveal her name right now because I'm protecting the guilty but Hearing her name and how she introduced herself to us. It was just like Okay, so the fuckery quotient just kind of went up Like potential the potential for shenanigans of shakator II Just increased, you know by a factor of 10 and so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: We're like, okay, you don't look like blocking it in, blocking it in. But you know, and then everybody starts interacting with each other. The Brazilian is interacting with, you know, the last dancer, like all this talking, like all this splitting, like, and then, you know, and then Lori Lightfoot was like, kind of coming in every once in a while, stuff like that, you know. Everything was okay. Until the end of the evening. and we're about to say our goodbyes. Next thing I know, next thing we know, like the Brazilian's husband is hot, right? He's hot and he's like, talk about disrespect and blah, blah, blah. And he's telling this to Lori Lightfoot. Because you know how sometimes studs can get little disrespectful. Right? And Lori Lightfoot comes up to me because he's hot and then like, you know, his wife's like, no, no, no, it's not like that. You know, I no, no, no, my God. And Lori Lightfoot is rolling up to me. Then leading with the brown liquor. It's like that's because he don't know his bitch. I'm like, oh, shit. OK, this is why I'm like, I'm like. Because Lori Lightfoot was talking real spicy. You know what mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: and stuff like that and Corey and I look at each other and we're like we're like where's the nearest bush so we could just like stream this back up out of it. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, Homer Simpson, not this conversation. ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: No, ultimately, ultimately the situation was diffused. The husband was over there in the huff, you know what I mean? And know, then Lori Lightfoot and the last dancer walked up that way. They walked up the other way. and I waited till they both walked away far enough from us. You know what I'm saying? So we were like, okay, let's go back. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: So, right, right, right. Well, we wound up not doing karaoke, but we were like, but at the same time, if we did karaoke, would we have this story? You know, so yeah, so that is the story of Blue Blazers, Brown Liquor, and Brazilians. Because Lori Lackwood had on that. She had on that Blue Blazers, too. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Let's go finish karaoke. Right. Right. ⁓ Lori Lightfoot's little sister. You gotta stop talking about people. Jiba Molei Anderson: I mean, I'm not exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating. Like, Cory is from South Carolina. He knows about Lori Lightfoot. So when I mentioned she looked like Lori, he was like, ⁓ my God, you're so right. Shout out to former mayor Lori Lightfoot. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, it sounds like ⁓ that's a tough job to have. Jiba Molei Anderson: Being a government official is a tough game to have, know, straight up. Hence again, those six hours with the show that we have right now, you know what mean? In our government, it's like, you know what mean? And then on top of that, it's like, y'all motherfuckers voting for me shit. Y'all voting for me shit. Like don't come to me now talking about, this is not what I voted for, bitch. This is exactly what you voted for. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. This is exactly what you voted for. He's given you what you ordered. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, like, like, fuck outta here. You know what I'm sayin'? Like, like, nah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. Have you noticed any or have you seen any like ice interactions and stuff? Jiba Molei Anderson: I was in the vicinity of a couple, you know, I didn't see it personally, but you know, I saw them. Like I said, I was in the vicinity of a couple of them. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a, that's a tough, that's a tough situation. That's a tough situation. And when I was in Florida, ⁓ I saw, ⁓ a Brown family get pulled over. I don't know if it was an accident or speeding or something, but they got pulled over and they're off to the side. And like, as I'm Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): pulling or as I'm driving by, I said pulled up and jumped out. So it was like some kind of traffic infraction that turned into everybody's leaving now. I ain't nobody safe. Ain't nobody safe. God. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ let's, let's, let's get back to the creative stuff before I started crying, before I get all sad. what was it? Okay. So, so you came through your family is super creative and they're super supportive. And they're like, yeah, but you're going to go be a creative juggernaut and all that stuff. What was the first style of creativity that you leaned into? Jiba Molei Anderson: Right on. Right on. I was always comics. Yeah. Like, I mean, I was always drawing. ⁓ At the age of seven, I figured out, like, if I could play for the rest of my life and that being a career, I would be happy. And I knew that drawing was all about it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ For a brief moment, I wanted to be an architect like my dad. ⁓ But at the time I didn't like math and then I found out you can draw people so was like, let me think about something else. But it was around 10 that I was like, I want to be a comic book artist. And that was like, that was the North Star from everything that I did. creatively. was all in service of learning to create comics. So whether it be doing theater, whether it would be doing photography, ⁓ getting into graphic design, stuff like that. That was all about the goal of ultimately becoming a comic book And I was supposed to be on this path because I realized through every step of my journey, I was straight up blessed. You know what I mean? With people I respected in the game. The first comic book artist I ever met at the age of 16 was a black comic book artist, which was Keith Pollard, who was doing stuff for Justice League and stuff like that. I knew his stuff. Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And isn't it a game changer to see representation like you look like me? Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, which means that I can do this. You understand? Todd Johnson, the creator of TRI, you know, that's still the biggest selling ⁓ black comic book of all time. Right? I used to shop at his comic book store when I was in high school. You know what saying? Yeah, even when I was starting to get in, he was like one of first cats I was talking to. Dennis Cohen. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): sick. That's awesome. Jiba Molei Anderson: from Milestone Media when I had my first portfolio put together and went and met him at Chicago Comic Con. was like around 1994. And him, like, looking dead in my eyes and talking about, you want to make your own comics, don't you? You know what I mean? Putting me on that path up to me meeting who would be my best friend. for 30 plus years, Lemoris Richmond, right before I moved to Chicago. ⁓ you know, and Lemoris gave me my first gig, which was working on J.B.D., right? So I say I was getting my master's at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. I was getting my doctorate on the art of creating comics, working with Lemoris. and Lamor is introducing me like to the game introducing me to you know to history to some historical players like Turtel only and Tim Jackson and and uh Satu Hayden and Grass Green you know to name a few like like talk about some pioneers in black copies right and then on the flip side me knowing and meeting up with cats like Brian Azzarello and Jill Thompson and Alex Ross, you know what saying? Just right at, and Tony Eakins, just right at the beginning of it. Right, but I mean, these, but these were, yeah, but, they were also at the beginning of their careers. They were just about to become the monsters, right? Yeah. And so, and so it was like, yeah. So I was like in it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Subtle flex. Subtle flex. But those are monsters. ⁓ hell yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what I mean? Like, and I was supposed to be in it. You know what I'm saying? To the point where, yeah, like in 97, 98, me creating Creo Enterprises, it was like I was, I was set up for success. You know what I mean? And, and my, uh, my man, Lemoris, definitely set me up for success. You know, and we were, we were. Joined at the hip, you know what I mean? Till the very end. Literally till the very end. You know what I'm saying? Like I took care of him in his last days. I was the last person that he talked to before he entered Stovacourt, because he's with certain nerds and stuff like that. he was evil. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Does it? Jiba Molei Anderson: He was straight up the Ramirez to my McLeod. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Does that affect your psyche at all being like understanding that you're the last person that this person spoke to? Jiba Molei Anderson: What's funny was that that night I was supposed to leave earlier, but I left my hazard lights on and it was cold that night. So battery of my car died. So I had to wait for a jump. And at the time I was kicking myself at the head, like right when it was happening, I was kicking myself in the head. I like, oh, you're so irresponsible. But I realized that was the universe giving me the final hours that I needed with my boy. You know what saying? Yeah. And I recognized it immediately because it was like, yeah. And yeah, I was the last person that he talked to. And I'm actually very, very happy that I was able to take care of him in the last months. You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Isn't that crazy how that happens? Jiba Molei Anderson: There was nothing, there are no regrets at all. There's nothing left unsaid. You know what I mean? It's like... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's how I approach my relationships, especially now that I'm older and I know how fragile everyone's timeline is. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I will tell you, I love you, I miss you. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, love you too, man. It's been way too long. And see, again, because we connected like that in media, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. 100%, 100%, boy, it was like hand in glove. We've always had our little, again, band of misfits. It was you, me, Scott, Jared, Ernesto, like. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right. Right. Jared, like just immediately, just immediately. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Just, it was so much fun, dude. It was so much fun. You guys are a highlight. You guys are definitely a highlight. I don't know if you know this, but ⁓ Scott, yeah. But he and I were like really tight. So tight that they called him Bleached Lose and I was Toasted Scott. Jiba Molei Anderson: I know, he passed. you ⁓ God ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): To this day, to this day, I still talk to, I still stay in communication with his family, with his wife and kids and stuff. You know, they look at me like Uncle Carlos and I adore them. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's the same thing with Lamorris and his family. It's like, got a new auntie, I got another sister, you know, taking care of his affairs. ⁓ it was just, you know, putting the affairs together, like everything was seamless, you know what I mean? And, you know, with his project and with his creations and his IAP, like... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: It was unanimous, like, you know, his mom and his sisters like, no, you handle it. We trust you ⁓ implicitly with ⁓ with what you're going to do with this stuff. yeah, you know, going to do him doing him right. You know what I mean? Doing it. It's. Oddly enough, I think it's going to be some of the best. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: creative work of my career, you know, as a designer and stuff like that. And then also going back to JVD revisiting the character that started my career. Like, you know, this week I've been, I mean, I've been very, very creative since his, I've been busy since his passing, just working non, you know, working. and just feeling that energy and feeling that creative energy, know, feeling that energy and just doing the work, you know what mean? Doing the work that he helped me realize that by putting all of those, you know, using all of those skills at once. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what was, what was the, the work divide? What were you in control of and what was he in control of? And then how did you guys figure out how to work together? Cause I know sometimes working with creative folks, there's head bumping. Jiba Molei Anderson: Well, he was well, the red on. Well, the thing is, yeah, well, the thing is, you know, coming in, me coming in fresh and new, he was the writer and creator. ⁓ I was the pencil. And during that time, it was just like, I was there to learn. You know what I mean? And I mean, he taught me so much. actually he actually gave me the words that allowed me to develop my art style. Because, you know, when I was starting off, right, you know, I was in art school and I was doing the art school thing and I was, you know, being that artist, but I thought comic books, had to be something else, you know, and I was looking at other creators and stuff like that. I was trying to mimic, you know what mean? Because there's so many different artists in my DNA and I'm like trying to figure out which one, which is the style that's going to help me sell. And at a certain point, he was looking at what I was doing and he was looking at stuff I was doing, you know, in art school, grad school. And he was like, you know what, I don't want you to draw comics. I want you to illustrate. And when he said that, it was like, ⁓ I don't have to keep the fine art part of me and the comic book part of me separate. They need to come together. You know what I'm saying? And when he said that to me, it's like, got it. know, so it's like what would become my style very much emerged. from that interaction and also showing me the finer points, know, like lettering, like how to actually put the book together, like what are, you know, what are, what am I looking for, right? What's going to define what I'm doing, the craft of it all. Just being with him and going through that, you know, that learning experience was immeasurable. And even afterwards, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: when ⁓ I became growing to my own and stuff like that. We never had arguments about the creative process because we were like simpatico. ⁓ You know what I mean? Like right from jump, we were simpatico about the creative process. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when you have that, when you again, when you have that relationship that just makes sense, you have that respect for each other and that understanding. So you don't have to work that hard to come to an understanding. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Yeah. Exactly. No, not at all. mean, we would give each other shit as friends would do, but it was always, it was always just giving each other shit. was never, we never had, there was never like a knockdown drag out, like none of that. You're right, none of that. None of that shit. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Of course. VH1, where are they now? Situation. Jiba Molei Anderson: It was like, it was like, no, we were right, we were right there with each other. You know what mean? Every step of the way. He got, you know, there were times when he would call me up and, you know, ask me like, what do you think about this idea? What do you think about this certain way to go on this project? I'm like, you know, do it this way, that way. I think the only thing that I don't know if he realized this. Because his whole thing was like, I just want to work. I just want to do work. I just want to create work. And ⁓ he definitely wanted to work on a DC or Marvel project. And that didn't happen. But he did stuff for the real Ghostbusters. mean, he worked in the comic book industry. He was indie. And that's the thing. He was an indie dude. And the thing about his concepts, to be honest with you, in a lot of ways, he was too good for Marvel or DC. they would have stifled him. And the work that he's left behind, the work that I have the extreme privilege and pleasure to not only have, but to be a part of, like this is pure lemoris. Like this is the real deal. Like this is, this is that, this is that real shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, And the reason why, like looking at it now, like the reason why I am, and I'm not looking at it just now, but the reason why I'm in this game is because of him. The reason why I am the creative in the position that I'm in, in this industry is because of him. You know what saying? Because he opened the door. And that's what he did. He just opened the door. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: And was just like, you know, come on in, right? And just show me, like, this is what being in the industry is all about. So you got a lot of, you know, people out there, like, they think about, they look at the movies, right? ⁓ And they look at, you know, some people, like, hustled, you know, will be able to hustle out a bunch of, okay, racist dudes to buy their books because you're catering to them. But you made a lot of money off of it. You know, again, they're looking at that paper chase, right? But it's like, that money comes and goes. Here's the thing, I'm about to be in this game 30 years next year. Like next year is the 30th anniversary of the horseman, my creation. Money comes and goes. I got that legacy right there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. ⁓ Congratulations. How many books have you put out in 30 years? Jiba Molei Anderson: in griot enterprises as a whole? ⁓ Well over 20. well over 20 because the four pages 16 Barth's anthology alone is 10 volumes. And again, that's another thing that I can say, right? While cats were talking about, we need a magazine or a book focusing on Black creators and blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah. I did that shit, right? I did that shit. And I did it longer than anybody. You know what I'm saying? Like, I beat all Negro comics. And I say that out of respect. You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sure. Hey, if you did it, you get to talk about it. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, right. You know, like, no one, like, literally no one else can say that. No one else can say that. Like, I have recorded the living history of black comics, you know, for over 10 years, and I had 10 volumes out of it, right? Last volume, the 10th volume being almost 200 pages, and the other nine are like 125 at least, right? With the horseman. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Damn. Jiba Molei Anderson: so far nine books. mean ten if we're counting this Kickstarter which is a couple days left which is a reprint of the first issue along with ⁓ Tales of the Orisha which are the actual myths from the African regions that inspired the horse. So did that and did some other stuff ⁓ like the Dark Kingdom, which came out of the work that I've done for role playing games and stuff like that. Up to being on the editorial team for the event of 2026 called Epiphany Engine, where ⁓ we have gotten over 30 independent black comic book publishers together, got the creators together or the characters together. And this is basically the black comics crisis on infinite earths. That's dropping that's dropping this year. And that's something that people have said couldn't be done. And I'm on the editorial team of that joint happening. You know what mean? Later, later this year. So it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): outstanding. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah, son. Have you ever met, have you ever met Dawoodanya Bwile? Jiba Molei Anderson: Not personally. We are Facebook friends, but we haven't met Facebook yet. We haven't met yet. And I say yet. haven't Yeah. Like, I know we will meet in person. Like, that's actually, like, that's Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Because of what I like to call the. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ that's my dog, dude. I can make that happen later today. Yeah, let me be that connection, because I want to brag about that one. Jiba Molei Anderson: the trinity of like the black comics movement of the 90s, right? Which officially got me in. It's like, yeah, I know Todd. I know Todd Johnson personally. You know what saying? ⁓ And Larry Stroman came to the first four pages, 16 bars gallery show. you know, so I got blessed that way. So Tribe Guys, I know, you know, with Milestone, know, Dennis Cohen. ⁓ hit me to the game inspired me to do that dwayne mcduffy turns out was a fan of the horseman you know what i mean and i know that because he told me you know what i'm saying and ⁓ that sort of thing so yeah so dow wood is the only he's the only one that i i have not met yet Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, now he, ⁓ every time I come up with some goofy shit, I reach out to him. He's been on the channel. He came on the channel probably last month, maybe. and, and we got the update and now he's just, if you're, if you haven't checked in on him on Instagram, you need to see what he's doing. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. I checked out what he was doing with ⁓ that brother man piece. Yeah, that piece. I know he's using AI, but he's using it really, really well. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And that's the part, that's the part like, I was always nervous. I've always been hesitant about AI and stuff. But then like, Dawood is doing his thing. And it is, it is so good. Jiba Molei Anderson: He's still. Yeah, he's doing. It is. And here's the thing. I don't love AI at all. I really. But. The cats that I know who are using it well, I respect like I would use it really, really well. Another another friend, colleague of mine, Tim Fielder, with the adventure of Addy Rocket, he's using AI very, well. And the trees Gaskins, she's using. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: AI well, you know what mean? Because the thing about the three people that I just mentioned, they're artists first. They don't need it. They don't need AI, right? It is strictly a tool for them. Again, I don't love AI. Like I am, I'm avoiding it. But it's like if I need to do a proof of concept for this horseman animated series that will hopefully, you know, green light it, I may have to dip into that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Jiba Molei Anderson: I'm not happy about it. ⁓ But because again, it's just like, it's just for proof of concept. You know what I'm saying? It's not. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I use it mostly, I use it mostly to, ⁓ to do the, the C level manager stuff coming up with budgets, coming up, writing emails where it's not every other word is a bad word, stuff like that. Right. ⁓ I'm just now. So do you remember Charlie Williams? Yeah, that's, that's my little brother. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay, Got you. Got you. Got you. ⁓ yeah! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We talk almost every week, every other week. And he put me onto this tool, Weeby. And I'm starting to play. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't think I will ever make a film or content or whatever strictly AI. But, like right now I'm working on a film. did, ⁓ last year I went on this off road racing race thing that I was out there. So the team invited me to come film. So I was like on this race for like a week, but there's certain things. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Like I want the truck to bust through some words. And so instead of opening up Macs and having to pay $500 a month for that stuff. And I can do it in blender too. But for now I'm learning how I can leverage my videos that I shot and doing the motion graphics and stuff like that. Right. Jiba Molei Anderson: Thank you. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, right, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): just because I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be an AI artist. I wanna use, I wanna leverage AI for the little parts that will make my bigger film more efficient. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, I think ⁓ someone calling themselves an AI artist is an oxymoron because they are not doing the work. The AI is doing the work for them. That's why with the other three people that I mentioned, I they're artists first, right? And I know they're, I mean, they were artists Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Right. I can see. Exactly. If you watch Dawood, that dude, he bleeds paint. Jiba Molei Anderson: No, Brother Man. It's Brother Man. mean, come on. Like, come on. Like, 1990, like, the first issue of Brother I'm like, who is? What is? This is Oh my God. Oh! Yeah, like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I got all his. Yeah, yeah, that's my dog too, man. He is always and now he's like, he's getting back into ⁓ oil paints, or he doesn't do oil, he does acrylic. He sets up a camera and he just goes in and paints to music and stuff. And I'm like, ⁓ Jiba Molei Anderson: I've been seeing some of his acrylics. I've been seeing, ⁓ I've been seeing stuff. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I fried my, I fried, ⁓ do you remember Anu? No, he had, Anu had, I don't think he was in school when you were teaching there. Anyway, one of my friends was like, so, or I was telling him, you know what I have a craving for? He was explained, he was expecting me to be like this food and this steak and this cake. No, I said, I want to sit with some newsprint and some charcoal. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mmm. Mmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So what I'm hoping is instead of spending all my time modeling a truck and modeling words and then making the truck bus through these words, I would like to get that part done so I can get back to newsprint and charcoal. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. the newsprint in the charcoal. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't want to spend all my days in the studio. I don't want that. I don't. I want to get back to exactly what we're seeing with Dawood and all these other folks. They're getting back to what got us going in the first place. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right, right. And that's yeah, that's ⁓ interesting that you say that because now you mentioned it's like, yeah, you know, I'm seeing cats, they're getting back to the analog, if you will. the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right. The texture of it. there's nothing, for me, the nostalgia of the texture of the newsprint and the fingers are dirty and you're just, how it, there's, ⁓ my God, it's such a wonderful feeling that you just can't get by clicking. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. No, you can't. And there was actually a piece that I did a couple of days ago, finished up, a JBD piece, that it came out of like a little rough sketch, you know, that I drew, that I drew, you know, pencil and paper and stuff like that. A little rough sketch, scanned it in, blew it up to like finish the inking of it. And it's like, yeah, you know, nothing beats, excuse me, nothing beats. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: like that physical action of the pencil to the paper, like, you know, if you're in the scritch, scritch, scritch, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And the other the other spot where I can see where AI would benefit someone is if you're a writer. Jiba Molei Anderson: Ish. You know what mean? Like, I think it's hopeful. I mean, with Word, you know, you've got the grammar. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No, mean, like imagine being, imagine. So for example, I've been approached so many times with someone who has a wonderful idea for a kid's book. And they say, can you help me? And I say, yeah, but it can't be for free. Right. And they say, ⁓ well, and I say, what's your budget? And if they say $200, I'm like, you, you need to research how much it costs to make a book. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ Yeah. to make a book. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. So like, if you are a writer and you're able to explain to a computer, I guess, ⁓ your story, and you can make it that way. If you don't have the budget for it, I can see where that's beneficial. Jiba Molei Anderson: being like an illustrated novel or something like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Or for example, like I had a friend that said, I have, have, ⁓ cats and I have this really cute story about my cats interacting. And she said, I don't care if it turns into anything big. I just want to have the story of mine. Something like that would be perfect. But if where I think where we're probably seeing eye to eye is like, if you're trying to do that and then you're trying to go to market. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, something like that is fine. actually... I had a... Yeah, no. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): with something that you didn't draw or, and even if you came up with some roughs, if you wanted to make a video and you're using it and you make storyboards or something like that, I can convince myself to forgive you. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, I mean, no, it's only when someone has the arrogance of saying that, I'm an artist because, you know, I did. Yeah, I badly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): because the computer made this for me. ⁓ did you see that? guess this happened today where the Supreme Court demonetized all AI music. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ okay, because I know that a couple of weeks ago, they were like, AI images cannot be copyrighted. You know, so right. Yeah. So, okay. So AI, so AI images cannot be copyrighted. AI music has been demonetized, which means like people can't make money off of it. So that just means like, exactly. So what? Yeah. So what that means is like, y'all need to, y'all need to get to it. Cause here's the thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's cool too. You got to be human. I like that. Yeah, you gotta be human to have that protection. Which is perfect. Jiba Molei Anderson: about that whole AI explosion of quote unquote creativity. For me, I think it definitely came out of the pandemic because I definitely feel that a lot of people hate artists. They hate, no, they do. They hate, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No, it's true. That's why the term starving artist exists. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, right. No, they hate, they hate creatives because, you know, the fact is that if we are lucky enough, we get to eat off of what we love to do. And what happened during the pandemic is that a lot of people who hate artists were beholden to us because we were the only ones keeping them sane. You know what I mean? With watching the movies with, you know, D nice with the brilliance of creating the whole versus thing I'm saying like they were they were They were ⁓ Captured they were you know, they couldn't do anything else but absorb content and So when AI came out, it's like ⁓ great. Now we know how to make magic too. We don't need you anymore psych. You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. And the whole thing, it's like, it's coming for your job. I'm like, how's it gonna come for my job when I own my own company? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): center AI slop. Exactly. Jiba Molei Anderson: And then if anything, what the AI slop is going to do, it's going to raise my rates because that's just going to make my shit artisanal. You understand? Whereas Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, I got interviewed for an online magazine once and I said, I said something about, you worried about AI? said, AI has never been a Cuban kid from Chicago. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly. Exactly. You know, AI has never been a Liberian African American. Dude from Detroit. Right. So nah, that ain't work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): from the D. And let me go ahead and float your balloons a little bit more. I like hanging out with you way more than a computer. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly. You know? Shit. You know, this ain't Jarvis. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right? I had, I don't know, I don't know if you've ever met Panic, Panic from the Molemen. He's a, he's a big deal in Chicago hip hop history. And I was talking to him and I said, you know why I come to Panik instead of AI? Cause I like what Panik does. I prefer to work with people. I prefer to work just because of the, like when you're in a room full of creative people, whether it's a music studio. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ no. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): or a lab at the school or whatever, drink and draw, whatever you want. That energy is just unbeatable. And I've been in computer labs and I've just, me and computers just don't connect that way. I love people. Jiba Molei Anderson: It's just that energy. Just the. Thank No, it's not the right. Yeah, definitely. It's the vibes. You know what I mean? It's definitely the vibes. It's definitely, you know, to just kick it with someone and yeah, and again, just feel that creative energy going back and forth. It reminds me of, I was at the Baltimore Comic Con a couple of years ago and actually with Lamor, this was our last convention together. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: And we went there not as professionals, we went there as fans. So anyway, ⁓ one of the guests there was Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, you know, grandmaster, grandmaster, you know what I'm saying? Artist. Like, and he had his sketchbooks out there. And it's just like, goddamn, you know? And I'm looking at his pages and at his roughs and his original sketches, like, ⁓ my God. And... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: there's this dude next to me and we're just like looking at the stuff and we're like, oh my God, this is so good. Oh shit, this is so, good. I'm like, yo, you know what I mean? I'm like, oh yeah, by the way, my name is Jibba. know, I got, you know, 300 blah, blah, blah. come to find out like I'm kicking it and I'm geeking out with Jerome Opinion, who like worked on Avengers and stuff like that. Like his art and I knew his art, like, and he's like, yeah, I'm Jerome, I worked on it, like, oh shit. And it's like, we're these two, you know, artists, right? Like in the game in various, you know, stages and areas in the game, but we're both there geeking out, you know what I'm saying, on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: like the Grandmaster, like both of us are like, you know, we are not pleased. Please master, please teach me a new song. That sort of thing. And you don't get that from AI slop. Because with AI slop, the point, the fact of it, the fact is that you will never get better. Your work will never grow. It will never evolve because it's not your work. It's the AI's work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Mm-hmm. Jiba Molei Anderson: That's that's not, that's not, but whatever. I exactly. And I tell my students this. I'm like, the, the act of making art is a combination of mind, body, and soul. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Your prompting might get better, I mean, for that go write a story. Jiba Molei Anderson: If you do not have one of those aspects in that process, you're not making it. Like even, you know, cause yes, your mind conceives it, but it's your body that makes it come to life. Like the act of creating it. And you know, some people argue like, well Photoshop is not the same. Like, nope, it is not the same because programs like Photoshop and Illustrator and Clip Studio Pro, all they are, are programs that mimic the actual, you know, the actual mark making tool. The only difference of working digitally as opposed to like painting or drawing is that at the end of the day you don't look like you beat the shit out of the Trix rabbit and stole his cereal. the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And for me, price has always been, you know, I've, come up from nothing, like less than nothing. We had to work to get to zero kind of thing. And so money was, has always been an issue. But once we got into digital, I was like, ⁓ unlimited paper. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right. anything. Right. You know, which, helps. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's a pencil that I don't have to buy over and over and over again. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, right, right, which helps to certain extent, but then we're always like, yeah, that, you know, that feeling. And the thing about it is that, you know, your mind conceives that your body's working it and in that, that is where the soul is being infused into the work. And what a lot of cats who call themselves AI artists don't understand is that people buy art because of the soul. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I just got done telling you I want to go back to newsprint. Jiba Molei Anderson: Not because of how good it looks, but it's like, can you get that feeling from it? And especially in comics, right? It's like, yeah, AI comics aren't going to pop off like that because people want that individual vision, even if it's from, you know, the latest issue of Batman or the latest issue of X-Men. You know what I mean? They want, you know, you look at the brand of X-Men. But the thing that made X-Men that brand is the work of people like Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Jim Lee, Paul Smith, Terry Austin, know what mean? Lenis Oliver, Tom Orszowski. You know what I'm saying? It is the artist that made that brand what it is. Right? And the creators that made that brand what it is. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'll go as far as to say, like Spider-Verse, Miles Morales, I connected with those two movies more than I have anything for a long time. But my all time favorite movie is Disney's Robin Hood. Jiba Molei Anderson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Right. Okay, okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): because of the imperfections, because of the humanity to it. People always complain, and ⁓ they reused this and that and they did enough and the lines aren't all clean. I don't give a fuck. That is the best movie ever created in my eyes. Because they put that shit on paper and then they put it on cell. Then they took pictures and then they put it, you know what I mean? Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. It's Right. Word, word. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, they put the work in. um... Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, the story is great. The voices are phenomenal. The songs are brilliant. Jiba Molei Anderson: Because I'm looking at, you know, the past few weeks, I've been on Tubi and ⁓ I've been, you know, getting my friends house in order. I've been watching old episodes of Silverhawks. Right? Right. And the thing and the thing about ⁓ you think about like Silverhawks, you think about Thundercats and stuff like that. I'm looking at it's like that's straight up American anime. It really is. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ hell yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: because like, of course, the animation studios, the Japanese animation studios and stuff like that. But it's like those cats and just think about in the 80s because of, you know, they had to do it for not even Saturday morning, but for like after school network. 65 episodes was one season. 65 motherfucking episodes was one season. Like, damn. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That is so much drawing. Jiba Molei Anderson: Goddamn! But they did it! You had to work! And they did it though. You know what mean? And a lot of that stuff is still, it still holds up. It's still clean. Although it's funny because I'm Silverhawks and I'm coming up with like new sub-plots for me. Like definitely with the Steel Twins and whatnot. In my subplot now- Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You had to work work. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ Steelheart because that was the girl, ⁓ She was a sexy stud and off duty she had her girlfriend Patricia somewhere and then Steel Will who was the dude, he's a power bottom. That's just me and my head. Just switching up like this. Because I'm like watching other episodes, I'm like man Steelheart is really handling the business like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha Jiba Molei Anderson: She on a rugby team? Like what's going on? But that kind of fun stuff as well. And part of that is, I think it's because, again, you feel the work that those people have done to make that stuff happen, right? And how they pulled that off, right? Like think about like Thunder the Barbarian and what a labor of love that was. You know what I'm saying? You know, have both Alex Toth and Jack Kirby like working on a project like that. And again, that's because that's the humanity that put the soul in those projects that people vibe off of. And that's what AI lacks. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just, again, I don't need shit to be perfect. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. perfection is an illusion. And if something looks perfect, then you don't trust it. You don't like it. It's like that uncanny valley, like how in the early aughts with ⁓ computer animation and stuff like that, they were trying to go real, real, real. And then Polar Express comes out and people are like, nah, nah, nah, we don't need it. We don't need computer animation to be, you know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: to be real like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. For that just film it. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. ⁓ Yeah, otherwise. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's how I see it. That's how I see it. Unless you're trying to, unless you're trying to like showcase some new technology or new render or something like that. Okay, but Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, yeah, sweet, but okay. Let's have some fun. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Well, yeah. And then think of this, think of like when's the last time you were nostalgic about AI slop. And I understand that AI slop is still relatively new, but with everything lasting 10 seconds, you know, the oldies are like from like two years ago. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, but again, it's like I don't remember a single piece. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. But then if I do that, but then if I say this conjunction junction. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly you're like Yeah, exactly right, right Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): See? Exactly. Exactly. There's just, yeah, there's just a connection to it. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it other than it was someone made it. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, it's that human, it's that soul element. It's the soul that you're connected to. You understand? That the AI slop just does not have. And also to be clear, 99.9 % of the people who want to call themselves AI artists, or like, I'm using AI to create this, are not creative. You know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: It's like the thing is, if you weren't making art before Mid Journey popped up, you're not an artist. Five-year-olds are artists. You know what I'm saying? Way more love in a five-year-old's piece than any AI slot, because that five-year-old put everything in there. They were drawing, they felt. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Right. And I keep talking. I keep talking about ⁓ I have nieces and nephews now that are getting into drawing and you know, they're four or five, six years old. And to really bring it home for them. Right on the backside of this camera. I have their art up on my dry erase board. So when they come over, I want you to see no matter what you see on the internet, no matter what people are telling you. You paint and you draw, I'm gonna put it up. Jiba Molei Anderson: Exactly. Yeah. Give them that encouragement, honesty. You know what mean? Because that's just pure creativity. When you're that age, when you're little like that, that's just pure. That is just unfiltered, like whatever is going on. Exactly. Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. just pure imagination and no motor skills. And that's why you work and that's why you do and that's why you continue to invent and you continue to test. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right. Because, you know, because then it becomes, yeah, then it becomes craft. You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. And don't let the world beat your ass to the point where you don't have any creativity left. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right, exactly. You know what I mean? So that's where the skills come into play. But that's another thing. A lot of these cats, they don't want to put the time in. They don't want to develop the skills, right? They want to act. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, nobody wants to be terrible. But when you start anything, when you started walking, you were terrible. But you kept at it. Jiba Molei Anderson: terrible at it. Terrible. Right. Until you kept at it until one day, I mean, first of all, you were able to grab like that, that, table and you're able to do some furniture walking. And then one day you got brave enough to walk with all your and stuff like that. Figuring that, getting the balance down. And next thing you know, you're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): All of a sudden you're in the Olympics. Yeah. Yeah, you think Usain Bolt came sprinting out of the womb? He might have been quick. I don't know. I wasn't there, but he might have been a quick delivery, but that man did not run out. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Right. ⁓ Exactly. Exactly. One of the analogies that I make with the comic book industry is that it's a lot like wrestling. You got to love that shit. It's a lot like professional wrestling. You have to love that shit because it's like everybody's story is the same. It doesn't matter if you're Stone Cold Steve Austin. Doesn't matter if you are The Rock. It doesn't matter if you were You know, ⁓ Ricky the dragon steamboat doesn't matter if you were Trish Strat, like everybody started out the same broke as fuck. You know what I'm saying? Terrible. Scrimping saving. You know what I mean? Because you loved it. Right. Because you loved it because you desired it and nothing was going to stop you from that. And that's the same thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And terrible. Jiba Molei Anderson: like being an artist. That's the same thing, you know, being a creative, being a creative anything. There is no cheat code. There is no cheat code. You have to put in the work and you have to love it. You can't like it. You have to love it. You know, if you want any career in this. And the thing is, if you coming in to get rich quick off of this shit, you would pick the absolute worst hustle to try and do that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, you have to put in. Listen. Jiba Molei Anderson: you might as well go and try and sell fentanyl. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You or go buy some scratchy tickets. Go test your luck over there doing this. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know, you know what saying? Right, because if you're trying to come in and, you know, and again, seeing those janky hustles of like, people trying to get people in, it's like, you do this, Rich, like, a couple years ago, like some guys were trying to start an AI comic book company and they had Colin Kaepernick trying to talk to people about that. I'm like, Colin, what are you doing, Colin, what are you doing? Like, this shit is not going to fly. at all in this life like like no like no no you know what mean like no no this is again you have to love the stuff you gotta you have to have skin in the game you know what i mean like people Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You have to invest. It's the same as everything. You're not going to walk into a fully developed corporation. You have to start small business. Jiba Molei Anderson: exact. Exactly, exactly. And because people, you know, they want to be Stanley, it's like, you know, Stanley wrote shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like Stanley wrote shit. And also, this is another myth that I'm going to dispel about the comic industry is that no one is stinking rich off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, unless you're the owner. Unless it blows up and you're the owner. Jiba Molei Anderson: I mean... Even then, mean, okay. So yeah, I mean, East, like for example, Eastman and Laird are ripped. You know what I mean? Because they struck at the right time. They were pioneers of the shit. And then, you know, the toys and the cartoons like, hey, we like those turtles, you know? I mean, Mignola with ⁓ Hellboy. He did really well. mean, Frank Miller with Sin City. You notice like with these guys I'm talking about, they're all Indy. You know, and they all own their property, right? But with that being said, like, or the image guys, you know, they were rolling it though, the original set. But again, that money fades, you know what I'm saying? And then it's the next gig, the next project, right? Same thing with Hollywood. It's like the reason why, for instance, Sammy Oll Jackson or Tom Cruise needs to have that blockbuster movie is because they got blockbuster bills. Them islands ain't go pay for themselves. You know what mean? Them yachts ain't go pay for themselves, right? Like, like, like they like they they put themselves in a situation like shit, I got I have to make 350 million this year. fuck. You know what saying? Like Surrey got bored in school. Shit. Because it's like, God damn. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know what mean? Like, like, Consuelo gotta put her girls through college. Shit! You know what I'm saying? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, let me tell you my Tom Cruise story. When I was in LA, working in Hollywood, I built Tom Cruise's website and it was in flash and it was so dope. And I knew that no one was going to believe me that I built it. And so I did a thing where if you typed my name, Jiba Molei Anderson: anything. Okay. Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): my picture would show up. It would take over for the mouse and my picture would show up. And, you know, for years, they've changed this since then, but for years, I was telling people, ⁓ yeah, I built Tom Cruise's website. They're like, man, fuck out of here, you liar. Tappity tap, tap, tap, and my picture like this. Jiba Molei Anderson: I'm why? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. ⁓ There's a handful of people out there that know. They've seen it. Jiba Molei Anderson: Sometimes you gotta let him know, especially if it was a flash site back in the day. Wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): son. It was so dope. You'd go in and be playing music from the films. And then you can go and you see his videography. You can see clips of the movies and you can all that you can interact and everything. Man, it was so dope. It was so dope. I was like, nobody's going to believe me. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right on. Go, Bob. You're right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nobody did until I showed them. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, and then there it is. And then now what? What? What you gonna do? Yeah, I do that. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There it is. Yeah, spike the football and we leave. Jiba Molei Anderson: Right. Drop the mic. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ Do you have time to keep going? Jiba Molei Anderson: Um, what? Hmm, a little bit. What time is it? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Or we can have you come back on. This is an open invitation. It don't even have to be. You can come, just keep checking in with me. Jiba Molei Anderson: ⁓ okay. Gotcha, gotcha. I do have to get going and do some stuff. Yeah, got a few more minutes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, let's do that. Because now that now that the ice is broken, that's it. I'm gonna keep having you on because this is fun. Or maybe even maybe even ⁓ you know what I'll do? I'll set up a roundtable where you me da wood hang out together. Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Let me get the wheels rolling on that. Jiba Molei Anderson: Okay. Okay. Go right up. Okay. ⁓ that'll work. That'll work. Yeah. Maybe me, Dawu, and Plug, because that will be cool. That will be like hip-hop and comics and shit like that. Like that, That'll be ill. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. Yeah. Yeah, cool. All right, we'll wrap this one up. This was this was such a good nostalgia. Boy, you filled my cup today. I feel so I feel so good. ⁓ I'm glad I'm glad that it seems like things are moving in the right direction. I love that you're still doing what you're doing, what you were meant to do. Jiba Molei Anderson: Same here, man. Yeah, I can't do anything but... You know, not at this At this stage of the game, it's kind of a little late to like, hey, was I supposed to do that? ⁓ no, I'm running right there. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah Yeah, sometimes the path gets dark, not dark. Dark is a sad way of saying it. Sometimes the path gets overgrown, but you just have to bust through those limbs. Jiba Molei Anderson: Yeah, yeah. That's what you have a matete for. That's what those are for. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's it. Jiba Molei Anderson: You know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Jiba, as always, I love talking to you. I love catching up with you. ⁓ Let folks know that are watching this let them know where they can find you online. Jiba Molei Anderson: Always a pleasure, Definitely. Okay, so definitely first of all you can find me at the griot enterprises website that's griotenterprises.com. All one word. case. You can also find me on Facebook. You can find it the Grio Enterprises webpage on Facebook or you can find me, J.Lo Anderson on Facebook. ⁓ I am JazzIntellect, that's J-A-Z-I-N-T-E-L-L-E-C-T on Instagram. Okay, so you can find me there as well. ⁓ But if you go to the Grio Enterprises website, that's kind of like the hub where you can check me out. Also, I don't know when this is going to air, but we got two days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the Horseman, Divine Intervention, number one, the Deluxe Edition, 100 pages of goodness. ⁓ And I'm looking for seven other backers right now, at least seven other backers right now, even though it's fully funded. But if you want to see where the new mythology began and where it's going, you can pick that up. All right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And there's a link to it on your website, on the griot enterprises website. Jiba Molei Anderson: Uhhh... I didn't. Just go to Kickstarter. Go to Kickstarter, type in the horseman. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. And then what I'll do for this video is send me the link and I'll put it in the description. Jiba Molei Anderson: Perfect, I will do that as soon as we get off. I will message you that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Perfect. All right, thank you brother. And with that everybody, we are out. Jiba Molei Anderson: Thank you, bro. Peace,