Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture
Welcome to "Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," where we delve into the essence of branding beyond the surface sheen. A brand is more than just a logo or a slogan; it's a reflection of identity, values, and reputation that resonates within our cultural landscape. Enjoy as we peel back the layers to uncover the raw, authentic stories behind the people and products that shape our world.
This isn't your average corporate podcast. Join Tom Frank, partner and chief creative officer at Merrick Creative, Mickey Factz, Hip Hop Artist and Founder and CEO of Pendulum Ink, and Jeffrey Sledge, a seasoned music industry veteran, for "Unglossy" as they get to the heart of what truly drives individual and organizational brand . In a world where where image is carefully curated and narratives meticulously crafted, we're here to explore the moments of vulnerability, pivotal decisions, and creative sparks that fuel the relationship between brand and culture.
Get ready for a thought-provoking journey into the heart and soul of branding – the unscripted, unfiltered, and truly Unglossy truth. Tune in to "Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod and join the conversation.
Unglossy is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios. Let your story take the mic. Learn more at https://merrick-studios.com
Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture
Mitchell Jackson: A Story of Resilience, Hustle & Art
Tom, Mickey and Jeffrey are back for a new season of Unglossy. In this compelling episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson opens up about his remarkable journey from the tough streets of Portland, Oregon, to becoming a celebrated writer and educator. Mitchell shares intimate stories of balancing street life with academics, the transformative power of writing, and the challenges of teaching during a global pandemic. He reveals how his time in prison and the long, arduous process of writing his debut novel, The Residue Years, shaped his identity and artistic vision. Alongside reflections on winning the Pulitzer and the evolving role of public intellectuals, Mitchell dives into the unexpected intersections of music, NBA fashion, and cultural narratives in his latest book, Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about resilience, authenticity, and the enduring art of storytelling.
"Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank, hip hop artist and founder of Pendulum Ink, Mickey Factz, and music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/
This week on Unglossy.
Speaker 2:So I go get in my car and I feel like I gotta run an errand and I call my mama. As I'm backing out of my garage, I'm like Mama, mama, like you'll never believe this, like I just won a Pulitzer. She said oh, that's great baby. Uh, what's that?
Speaker 1:From the top. Yeah, I'm Tom Frank. I'm Mickey Fax.
Speaker 5:And I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Unglossy decoding brand and culture. I'm Tom Frank, partner and chief creative officer at Merit Creative. This is Mickey Fax, hip-hop artist and founder and CEO of Pendulum Inc. And that is Jeffrey Sledge, a seasoned music industry veteran who has worked with some of the biggest artists in the business. We're here to explore the moments of vulnerability, pivotal decisions and creative sparks that fuel the relationship between brand and culture. Get ready for a thought-provoking journey into the heart and soul of branding the unscripted, unfiltered and truly unglossy truth. Welcome back fellas, welcome back world. It's been a minute since our last unglossy recording. Happy New Year.
Speaker 3:I got my guy Tom on my wall.
Speaker 1:Look at that I don't know why you think that's me on your wall. For those who can't see, it's a guy with hair and a mustache.
Speaker 3:This is you back in the 80s man.
Speaker 1:Back in the 80s you was in the club.
Speaker 3:I guess, so yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, all right, some exciting news. Based on the success of this show in our first season, we're now rolling into season two, starting today. Right Plus, we have an expanded network of shows here at Merrick Studios. I'm going to run through them real quick. Okay, let's do it. We got mixed and mastered with our very own Jeffrey Sledge, where he dives deep into the journeys, challenges and triumphs of the people shaping the sound of music yesterday and today. How about that, jeffrey Sledge? And tomorrow?
Speaker 5:Yeah, we got a bunch of recordings already ready.
Speaker 1:They're going to be coming out soon.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I'm excited about that one. I think we got, I think we're onto something here that's going to be a nice a nice run, a nice run, a lot of good stories coming out.
Speaker 1:We got pitch lab, which I host with a former guest of this show classic. That is a brand session with ceos and founders who are hustling to take their companies to the next level. With a little magic at the end, we interview these guys and then we create a punchy fun 30-second content piece for them. Very good stuff, very good stuff. Our first guest was a guy who runs a place called Coffee Black and sure enough, the first thing out of his mouth was please say hello to Mickey Fax for me.
Speaker 3:Oh man, what's up? I'm saying hello right now.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I can't get away from you no matter where I go, you're popping out here.
Speaker 3:I'm all right. I'm all right.
Speaker 1:We got Place Shapers, which is hosted by my colleague and friend, todd Feidelman, which features candid conversations with the real estate industry's top movers and shapers, visionaries shaping the spaces where people live, work and connect. All these shows brought to you by Merrick Studios. Merrick Studios. And lastly, we cannot forget about Pendulum Inc, which is about to celebrate its third graduation with an entire week dedicated to hip-hop. Tell us a little bit about that week, starting with our celebrity lecture. Yeah man.
Speaker 3:We got my guy Tretch pulling up February 26th it should be good on Zoom. Make sure you guys get your tickets for that. That's going to be apparent, you know, on our website, penduluminccom. And then we have our Pendulum Inc showcase open mic cypher on March 1st Headline by myself and Corey Guns, with Pete Rock playing beats, hosted by Sonny Anderson and DJ'd by DJ Evil D Should be great. We got some surprise celebrity guests Pulling up to rap on the mic With some up and coming artists. It should be dope. It's a brand new endeavor I'm trying to put together and we already halfway sold out Pre-sale tickets, so I feel good about that. And last but not least, we got our graduation happening sunday, march 2nd private event, but it's very special, you know.
Speaker 1:Commencement speaker don't give it away. Yet we're giving away. Yeah, yeah, don't give it away. Yeah, all right. All right, all right we got a lot going on here and we're back with our glossy we had a very, very cool guest to kick off season two. I was I. I really enjoyed this guy.
Speaker 3:A lot. Money, money money, money, money, money money, money, money, money, money, money money money money, money, money money, money, money money, money, money money, money winner in here and then you know we'll get the egot right, I got a plug on a tony award winner, actually a girl.
Speaker 5:Uh oh, she's not a girl, she's a grown but a girl college with. She's like really big I'm gonna wait, man, though we've had.
Speaker 1:So we've had a pulitzer, we've had an oscar, oscar, we've had an nba championship yeah, we had it.
Speaker 3:Yep, we had an em, an Emmy, right. The Emmy was the chef, right? Oh no, I thought he was an Oscar, that's an Emmy? Well, it's the same thing no, emmy and Oscar is two different things, so we've had an Emmy.
Speaker 5:Marcus won an Emmy yeah, marcus won an Emmy who won an Oscar we haven't had an Oscar person yet.
Speaker 3:Alright, alright, so we need an Oscar and a Grammy. And it's only Now you would think that we can get a Grammy. You know I gotta start flexing. You gotta flex a little bit B You've been kind of late Season 2 is Season 2, I might have to you know, get a little jiggy on y'all.
Speaker 1:You know I might have to deal with that. I might have to call Jermaine Dupri I might have to call Jermaine Dupri for one.
Speaker 5:You have a lot of phone calls to make.
Speaker 1:Jermaine Dupri will be fired. That'll be the Grammy one. Let's get a Grammy. All right, let's dive into our Pulitzer Right now. This guy was good Mitchell S Jackson Rich. Smicky.
Speaker 1:Unglossy is brought to you by Merrick Creative, looking to skyrocket your business's visibility and drive growth. At Merrick Creative, we solve your brand and marketing woes With big ideas, decades of experience and innovative solutions. We'll draw in your target audience and keep them hooked. Remember, creativity is key to success. And now back to the show Jackson. He's the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award in Feature Writing. His debut novel, the Residue Years, received a Whiting Award and the Ernest J Gaines Prize for Literacy Excellence, while his essay collection Survival Math was named a Best Book of 2019 by 15 Publications. His latest book, which we're going to get way into Fly, the Big Book of Basketball Fashion, hit the USA Today bestseller list and was praised by the New York Times as elevating basketball style to high fashion status. Beyond his writing, mitchell holds major fellowships and teachers and teaches at Arizona State University, while also contributing to the New York Times Magazine and Esquire. We're thrilled to have him here. Welcome, mitchell.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank here.
Speaker 1:Welcome, mitch Thank you.
Speaker 5:Thank you, mighty Mitch. Yo, I see you got the Tom Brown on the load. I'm going to let you cook though.
Speaker 2:I had to do it for you, man you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5:The first thing me and Mitch do is check out what we're wearing. I see you Because we first met. It's been like that. Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:He looks like an author. He looks like an author. You two don't look like an author.
Speaker 5:He looks like an author. I definitely don't look like an author at all.
Speaker 3:I'm an author, by the way.
Speaker 1:You are an author, mickey. There we go. Now you're talking to us from arizona state. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in the. You're in the mountain time district where we were that was.
Speaker 2:That was throwing us all off. Yeah, me too. Now how long have you been thinking out there now? Uh, this is my fourth year. Oh, it's been a minute. Yeah, man, I left new york and went to um. I was teaching at university of chicago. It was a pandemic year, though, so it's kind of weird because I never actually taught a class on campus. We were all Zoomed, and then I ended up leaving to come here before I taught my second year there, but I thought when I left New York, like Chicago was going to be it, that was home base.
Speaker 1:Wait. So you never stepped foot into a classroom at the University of Chicago for the first year. You were there, and then you were gone, and then I was gone. Yeah, wow, yeah. What made you, what made you go to Arizona state, other than the weather?
Speaker 2:Man, you know, they make you offer. You can't refuse, you don't.
Speaker 5:Bread, the bread, shit, you know, you figure it out with the bread.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now you grew up in Portland, oregon, though right, you're a West Coast kid, I am a West Coast guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, that's actually how me and Sledge met. Now I was counting back, it's like 20. It's over 20 years.
Speaker 5:I was trying to figure out how long it was. It's been a long time I moved to.
Speaker 2:New York in 2002, and you were one of the first people that I met when I moved to New York.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have a friend, a big homie named Ramon Blackburns, got his own store, had a fashion line back then and moved to New York like maybe three, four years before me, and so that he was like my kind of entree into into New York and the fashion scene and you know, music scene a little bit. Yeah, I came out there for graduate school NYU in the fall of 2002.
Speaker 5:Wow, yeah, that's been a long time, man. What do you do, jeffrey? Just walk the streets Because it seems like everybody says they meet you.
Speaker 1:The first person they meet in New York is Jeffrey.
Speaker 5:Sledge. Well, two things. Sidebar Ramon, actually his store. Chris Atlas is a partner in that store. Oh, wow, yeah, and Chris has been on the show as well.
Speaker 5:And then we have a mutual friend, ozzy. Ozzy actually saw him Christmas time when I was home and Ozzy was deep into fashion, he was working with Ramon on some stuff and I'd always go by Ozzy's office and hang out and you know, just kick it or whatever, and Ramon would come by with Mitch and we all just got started kicking it that way and Ozzy's office on the fashion district 40 something street in the fashion district in New York yeah man, I almost ran up on a dude that I thought was Ozzy at Art Basel, just whatever Basel was like a couple months ago.
Speaker 2:I could have sworn it was Ozzie and I hadn't seen him in a minute. I was like Ozzie and he's like oh, my bad bro, oh my bad, oh man, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So I know you played ball out in Phoenix, sorry, in Portland too. Yeah, portland, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I stopped at junior college ball but my partners was. You know, most of my friends played Division I college basketball. Half of them played overseas. Okay, A couple of them played in the league and one was rookie of the year. So it's heavy basketball in Portland.
Speaker 1:Oregon Rookie of the year. Now you can't just stop there. Who was the rookie of the year?
Speaker 2:Damon.
Speaker 5:Stoud uh damon stuttermeyer.
Speaker 2:Oh, all right, yeah, he's away now, he coached georgia tech now.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, that's right he does. Yeah, he coached. He coached uh, in the pros, for he was up with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was assistant, right, yeah yeah yeah so emay was my high school teammate.
Speaker 5:The coach, yeah oh yeah, he was boiling too, okay, yeah he started with me.
Speaker 2:It's crazy because Emei was like the third best basketball player in his family. His brother was the same year as me. We played freshman basketball together.
Speaker 1:This must have been a heck of a high school team, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess so yeah. And then his sister played in the WNBA early, like maybe one of the first draftees.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and played in the Olympics for Nigeria. Wow, that's crazy, yeah, crazy. So tell us about the whole because I gave Tom a brief overlook of your story, yeah, how you played ball and kind of got to the streets a little bit and figured that out and kind of break it down for us, you know.
Speaker 2:Man. I had a young lady who used to call me street nerd back in the day. Uh, she was the only person that called it to me, but I thought it was such a apt nickname because I was always like half in, half out, like I was an honor roll student. I I just showed, maybe like six months ago. I I showed my friends I had a little plaque, I was like 4.0, student, scholar, athlete in high school, and then I was also, you know, selling dope on the side.
Speaker 2:But if you go back a generation, all of my family not all of my family, that's not true. My father, his brothers, my stepfather all of them diehard hustlers. Brothers my stepfather, all of them diehard hustlers. So I grew up around that, so it didn't really seem like that much of a stretch by the time I got to high school and started hustling my mother. You know I'm from the crack era, so my mother was struggling with addiction and I was around it and kind of demystified it by going out and doing it on my own. I never was like, I think, if you're going to be a good hustler like you, got to commit. I never committed, but I've made enough to. You know, go get my little Lexus and Moroli and all that shit, but I wasn't no kingpin.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what? What happened? I know you got, you got caught, you get a little. So what happened exactly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, know, you got caught. You get a little yeah. So what happened exactly? Yeah, man, I got caught. I was in college so crazy, because now they're trying to kill diversity and inclusion and my scholarship was the underrepresented, minority achievement scholarship. It was called UMass, portland State University, that's how I got. They were paying for my tuition and they actually held that scholarship while I was in prison, so I was able to come back, finish my degree. I mean, if I didn't have that scholarship, I don't know I'm taking less when I could.
Speaker 2:They held that for you.
Speaker 1:That's kind of impressive.
Speaker 2:The way my idea is 16 months, so the way it worked out was, if you count the summer break and a whole school year, that's what it was. So I just told him I got a family emergency. I need to unenroll for this year of school. So I didn't tell them I was going to the penitentiary, but they still did hold it for that length of time and that really was like the most important decision of my life was going back to school.
Speaker 2:And while I was locked up I started writing a little bit and then so I got out in 98 and then I went to graduate school in portland in 2002 uh, for writing. And so that's around. That time is when I no, sorry, in 2000. And uh, that's when I decided I don't know if I decided I was going to be a writer, but I decided I was going to write a book, which I think are two different things to write a book and to actually claim a writer as your identity is a different thing, so so I'm pretty impressed that I mean I got to imagine coming out of jail and making that decision to go back to school.
Speaker 1:I mean because that could have went many different ways. Uh, like what, what was kind of the the part? I mean, how did that come about?
Speaker 2:Well, no options, or or feeling like I had less options. You know you go to jail. If you smart, you do know that your options have just been restricted, right. So a whole lot of things you can't do. It was easy for me to go. They were holding a scholarship. It was part of my identity. I was always a good student, so I did that. I didn't want to work. There was that too. But I also feel like it's a great thing to be part of a small community, because people that knew me knew me as a basketball player or a good student or a drug dealer, and so it was really easy to kind of shed the part that least belonged to me and to enter into those identities that were more felt, more genuine or real parts of me. So to go back to school and do well was a thing that I had done my whole life, so it wasn't as hard as you think.
Speaker 5:So when you went, when you went, were people supportive or was some, was some cats kind of like hating on you, like kind of like, oh man, you know.
Speaker 2:I was. You know, I was just I was joking when I had a big homie, um, this dude named LG, so he came, he was in, I knew him from the streets. But he came maybe like I was like I don't know nine, 10 months into my sentence and I was in a dorm and he, like on the own transport day, with everybody coming in, they got they roll up shit and they and I was sitting by the door playing dominoes with somebody and he didn't know I was down, so he come in and he didn't know I was down, so he come in and he got his bedroll and everything and he's like Mitchell, like what are you doing here? I said time nigga, same as you is come on and sit down and I'll give him 150 to zip that day.
Speaker 2:And when I tell you 30 years later I still be like LG, that time I beat you 150 to zip. Um. Well, I tell that story because the shock on his face when he saw me was like don't belong here, yeah, and that I I kept that with me like I don't belong, like it's a dude that don't belong in prison, that'll go to prison. Well, I'm here now, like let me go ahead and handle my business. I was not that dude like I was gonna survive it, but I wasn't like I'm of it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you look. You was always looking out the front door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you did survive it. Like I can't, I can't even imagine. I mean I can't imagine. I don't know if I would survive 18 months, or what is it?
Speaker 2:18 you would if they gave it to you.
Speaker 5:You ain't got no choice.
Speaker 2:You can't do it till you get it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. Then you got to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how much, how, how far did you dive into writing when you were, when you were there? I mean, I assume writing could easily pass a lot of time.
Speaker 2:I didn't really dive in until I was getting close to going home. So so two things. One, I just kind of passed time for most of the time. So again, I was playing a lot of dominoes, I played pool, we had weights, but somebody at another prison hit a dude in the head with a weight and they took the weights from us. So we couldn't all the Oregon prisons got weights taken. So I was like on calisthenics and stuff.
Speaker 2:And then when I knew I was getting close to going home, I was like, oh, I need to prepare my brain for going back to school and being a student. Like I haven't been like intellectually engaged. I didn't use that kind of language, but I'm like I need to make. I had to get my mind ready for that. So that's when I started reading. We had like a little bookshelf and I started reading. And then the other thing was a lot of guys, you know, you start telling your story in prison and if somebody wrote my story down, it'll be a this and that. So I was like I had that same kind of mentality, except that I actually did start writing, um, my story down. And then the last thing was I used to play a lot of ball and they they was like the old hairs was like man, when you get short, you can't play no more ball, because they'll try to do something to you out there, either to hurt you or to make you lose your time.
Speaker 2:So they're not going to oppose, so you mad. And now you ain't going home now, so I was like all right, I ain't playing. No more ball, that's smart, that's smart.
Speaker 5:Towards the. I ain't playing, no more ball. That's smart. That's smart. You kind of really, towards the end, you just really kind of stayed to yourself and just started writing.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, nah, I'm going home.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you're not even joining If.
Speaker 2:I, it's me out. So how was the?
Speaker 5:transition going like your first, you know few semesters or whatever in college. How did that?
Speaker 2:how was that out of that so great? It was like just, it was normal man. You know, I had a little bit of money saved so I wasn't like dead broke. I still had my, my jewelry and my shit. And I had a woman man, I man. She helped me like she never missed a visit the whole time. I was every, every visiting week.
Speaker 2:She was there I mean, I sit out my window and look and you can. And then it got to the point where dudes that didn't really even know me would see her parking and be like, hey man, your lady outside, man here she come, you know. So that really got me through to have somebody. It's so crazy, cause I'm I'm doing an event tomorrow with this woman, kiana Harris, who I met like some years ago and I can't remember how much she did, but her partner did like maybe a dub or something like that. He was stretched out and she did time with him, the whole dub. I don't know if it was a dub, it might have been like 15, whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, it was over a decade it was a long time yeah, and she did it with him, and so I I think about that, like what it means to have someone from the outside who was showing you every week. They care about you, that you're not forgotten out here and I'm obviously my time is not like I ain't doing no dime or nothing, but like that shit is so important. So I had that also when I came home and I really that probably was the bedrock of how I got through the time.
Speaker 5:That's interesting, that's interesting, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:20 years, what's you know? Because I want to move away from the prison, kind of talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But you know, being there for 16 to 18 months, you know, from a, from a outside, looking in, what do you feel like you missed the most when you got back out?
Speaker 2:Uh, and what do you feel like you missed the most when you got back out? Man, I don't think I miss that much. I mean you miss it while you're gone. Like you miss you know what I mean. I used to listen to the radio and imagine what the club was doing on Saturday night. Or there's pictures like I've had the same friend since I was freshman in high school, and so there's pictures that with they'll still reshare and it'll be from the time when I was and I'm like damn I, it'll remind me. Oh, I was gone. I wasn't at that thing. That y'all yeah talking about.
Speaker 2:That was so, you know, and they're resharing shit 30 years later, so obviously it was meaningful to them. So there are those moments. But I think, to kind of even segue us into the present, one thing that prison did for me, was it? Let me know, I can handle any adversity, oh yeah, and there to me is, there's nothing more dehumanizing than bend over cough and spread them, more dehumanizing than bend over cough and spread them when you like. There ain't nothing more humiliating, dehumanizing. And I think, if you can, if you can get past that and maintain a sense of also compassion and empathy and humanity and get on the other side of that, like when you've experienced something in the world, you're like man, whatever.
Speaker 2:I remember my homeboy came home. We were best friends when we were young and he had did like I think he was 16, so he had came to new york when he was talking and uh, he was like, yeah, man, you know I was out there, man, this little homie was talking crazy to me, man, I got him in the rec room and just jabbed him up real quick and I was like what, whoa? Like?
Speaker 5:he said it like he turned like his normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he took it like he was and I was like we just we I mean it's my dog from first grade on. And he said that shit, like he kissed the dude on the cheek or something. He like yeah, real good, and kept it going. And I was like, oh, we're different now, like you know. I don't know if I could just and just talk about it like there ain't nothing happening, you know. So I think it shows you things about yourself, right? So when I'm in the university and I'm experiencing, say, some kind of adversity with my dean or with a colleague or something like in my mind, I go back to like, well, let's compare these two things, man like one is freedom and humanity and humility and your manhood, and the other thing is about whether or not you want to show up at this meeting.
Speaker 2:I'll take whether or not I want to show up at this meeting every time every day of the week.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how long did it take you to to write the, the, the first novel, because it was before residue, right, was it? Oh, was it?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I did also um, but over so was really kind of after, even though it came out before. I was working on residue. Residue, I say, is a book. That it's the book that I decided to write, so it was the pages that I brought home from prison. Then it was my first MFA, so my first graduate thesis. Then it was my second graduate thesis and then it took another. I mean I finished graduate school at NYU in 2004. It took another 10 years. So I worked on that book like 15 years before it actually got published. And again, there are lessons. Right, will you stick with something? For 15 years? I came to New York. All that time you knew me. I was working on that book you know, like literally
Speaker 2:yeah, it ain't nothing, you know. And the crazy like I was just thinking about Doshi, right, I'm like she's popping now. She definitely getting you know she had the Super Bowl performance. I'm sure she's getting 20, 30 racks of performance, right. So like it's a very real chance she's a millionaire now. I won damn near every award you can win when that book came out. I was not anywhere near a millionaire, right. So even the success that you experience as a writer, there's really no equal to it, because it takes the same or more amount of time, right. Fifteen years. They gave me seventeen thousand five hundred dollars as a book advance for that book. So if you can imagine seventeen thousand dollars for 15 years of work like that, math ain't mathing you know, basically a thousand dollars a year, a little more, yeah, basically yeah, and then you're not.
Speaker 2:It ain't like you could start it. Like you know. I think about a music artist like I obviously everybody been talking about Kendrick right. Like if you were to take Kendrick's first two albums and where he was after his first two albums and you put survival, math and residue and what happened? For me in the book world, they're basically the same narrative, like it's. It's the second, it's it's we're equals in our different genres, except that one genre you're an international music star who's a multi-millionaire, and the other one you're like man, I don't know if I should take this gig for for five thousand dollars to go speak over here, right. So it's really interesting, like the value we put in the different worlds.
Speaker 5:So that is crazy, yeah. So what well, I want to get deep into the residue thing. So I watched the documentary too, by the way, which was oh yeah yeah yeah, that was super. That was super, super dope. It really explained it well Like so what was the kind of your motivation behind behind writing a book was?
Speaker 2:you behind. Writing a book was, you know, obviously the right story, but but what else, man, it was to make? Okay, there was two things. One it was to show that I could transform my experience into art so I really early on I it was like a fort, it was like I can write a hood book. That's when you know. Remember they used to sell the hood books on 125th and you know, yeah, I hand ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I could get on the, in my mind, the tony morrison path, right, like you can get on the acclaim and you might win a pulitzer someday and that, and so that's a different path. Like you got to really study, you may or may not crack you or may not sell some books, and so I decided that I was going to be on that path, a triple entendre or anything but like I'm learning it down to that level of nuance in the residual years. And then there's the experience. So there's the kind of making sense of it, there's also the like, but this also has to be art, because if I don't make sense of it, my whole life they're going to be like oh man, you, you know, you had a mama that was on dope and you you went to prison like shit, and so I'm gonna be in that lane and then that becomes for me my currency, and I didn't want that to be my currency for the next 20 years.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to say, man, this guy's a real artist and he happens to have this experience that informed these first two or three books or whatever. But you know, I mean, if I'm writing about NBA basketball and they say that's art, but I ain't got shit to do with my mama being on dope.
Speaker 5:Not at all. Not at all yeah.
Speaker 2:I was, I felt really fortunate. That residue was like how I made sense of my personal experience. Survival math was how I made sense of my community and the history that shaped black people in Oregon. So to me those two things are like OK, I said what I needed to say about this, and now where are we going after that?
Speaker 4:And we'll be right back. Master the art of lyricism with Pendulum Inc. The first school for rap. Learn elite techniques through immersive lessons, real world exercises and and guidance from hip-hop icons. This is where MCs sharpen their skills and glow boldly on the mic. Ready to level up, visit PendulumInccom and start your journey today.
Speaker 1:And now back to the show.
Speaker 5:I might be skipping forward a little bit, but where were you? How did it happen, when you received the? The poster, yeah, the poster, yeah. How did it happen?
Speaker 1:when you received the Pulitzer, yeah, the Pulitzer, yeah. How did that happen? Did you just get a letter in the mail, or somebody show up at your house?
Speaker 2:Bro, the crazy thing about that, that was pandemic year. I was living in Chicago so it was sheltering. And that year, because of the pandemic, they had moved the National Magazine Awards and the Pulitzer. No, they moved the National Magazine Award so it was actually the day before the Pulitzer, so the ceremony was virtual. For the National Magazine Award. It was like this and I'm on there with all the Runners World people and the big Hearst executives and they, you know, they announced, you know the winners Mitchell Jackson, the Mount Aubrey I'm like oh shit, like this is crazy.
Speaker 2:And I remember I got off of the. After we had got off the call, I got an email from the head of publicity for Hearst and he said Mitchell, I just want you to know that this is our Oscar, because I didn't have any really perspective of the magazine. So I'm like, oh shit, like this is crazy. Now this is, say, 7 or 8pm Chicago time, that this is, this is an evening ceremony. So the next morning or the next afternoon in New York they're doing the Pulisers. I knew they were doing it and there are maybe two or three people that have won both. So I'm like there's a remote possibility that this could happen, but I do not want to stress myself out. So right before I know that the ceremony is happening, I'm like let's take a nap I lay down.
Speaker 2:And then I get a call from my homeboy who went to nyu with me. He had won a pulitzer in poetry, maybe like four years prior. He never called me. So I pick up, I'm like what's up, man? He said man, congratulations. I said congratulations about what he said man, you just want a pulitzer, you don't know. I said get the fuck out of here. He like nah, man, you go check. So I go online and the pulitzers do it. It was on twitter. That's how I found out. Wow, I'm looking on twitter and I'm like man, this can't be true, this can't like. Maybe they lying. So it took a lot verifying for for me to believe it. But yeah, I got the call. His name is Tyemba Jess. I don't know what year he won the Pulitzer, maybe 2015. He was the one that called me and said man, congratulations. I will never forget that, because both of those things happened within 24 hours, that that had never happened to anyone because the ceremonies were never back-to-back before.
Speaker 5:They're always like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you had no idea you were going to win. I mean, you thought maybe you had an outside chance, but you really didn't think necessarily you were going to get either one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know I knew I was. So the National Mac Neiman Awards they announced finals. Actually, tomorrow they announced the finalists for this year. So you know you're a finalist and you know you're going to the ceremony with the Pulitzer. You have no idea. They announced finalists and winners same day you got they. They're not giving you no email or nothing, it's just you find out when the world find out.
Speaker 5:Oh, wow, you get anything.
Speaker 1:Do you get a certificate statue? What do you get? Yeah, oh, I want to see the statue. You got one. Here we go, let's see it. We've had an Academy Award. We've had an Academy Award on here, right?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And now Wow.
Speaker 2:I get a little ski or something, but this is the little thing they give you here.
Speaker 5:The Get a little ski or something, but this is the little thing they give you here, the little trophy that's dope.
Speaker 2:I want to say I think this is made by Tiffany.
Speaker 5:Probably.
Speaker 2:Woo. But yeah, you get that and some other stuff. I remember going to the ceremony because they did it super late and they had the little gift bags when we was leaving and they had Tiffany gift bag and I'm walking out like a real black person.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh, oh, hold on, man, I gotta get back get back yo I don't think you should limit that to, uh, just black people. I would have done the exact same thing I. That's how I was raised grab two of those bags.
Speaker 5:Let me get two let me get an extra one for me don't mind my dad so wait, how did so? How did your? How does your world change after winning like that's, like you said, this oscar never award in in journalism?
Speaker 2:in writing. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. Um well, two things, one, one of the most. Now, it wasn't most humbling, but I remember that after the pulitzer I'm like in disbelief. I'm walking around just literally like I can't believe this. And also I'm in Chicago, so it ain't like I got no partners around me, I'm just me and my ladies out there. So I go get in my car and I feel like I got to run an errand and I call my mama. As I'm backing out of my garage, I'm like Mama, mama, like you'll never believe this, like I just want a Pulitzer. She said oh, that's great, baby. What's that?
Speaker 2:So that immediately I was like, well, the world don't care about this shit like I do, the world don't care. So that was one thing. And then I think again, we just don't have the same like an accomplished slash. I don't think that there is really such a thing as writer fame. Oh well, if you think about it like, I remember being at I used to teach at John Jay for a little while and they had an event with Stephen King. They had tables like lined up, maybe like 60 feet of books stacked like four or five books high. I mean this had to be thousands of books that he couldn't have signed all of them, but I mean they were giving them away. Stephen King walked in there, walked right past the books. Nobody is losing their mind over Stephen King.
Speaker 2:You know James Patterson walked down my block right now. No one probably but me would reckon you know. So, like, yeah, I think this idea of writer fame does not exist. Now, writer accomplishment, like you, go into a room full of writers, obviously, I know who Colson Whitehead is, I know what Ta-Nehisi Coates is, I know Imani Perry, I know Rox Colson Whitehead is, I know what Ta-Nehisi Coates is, I know Imani Perry, I know Roxane Gate. But this idea that your life flips, you know, like that, like all the artists that you were with when you watch, you know tipping them, you know in the beginning of their career they can walk into Jive, you know, then they get popping.
Speaker 3:They come in and not everybody want to come to the office, like that just is not happening with us. So I think it's a it's a really great thing if you're humble about it, because it allows you know that's not, that, even that is not. You know what. What's equal to OK so think about it.
Speaker 1:James Patterson Right, I got a ton of James Patterson books behind me, you know he were to walk down. I don't know if I'd know if he, like, stood right next to me at the bus stop.
Speaker 2:I have no idea who he is, so I went to this um, I'm not going to mention her name because, well, maybe I will mention her name. I went to the uh dinner. It was this, this, this, this writer named minjin lee, who's a really cultural figure, like she's a great person. This is in new york, this is maybe last fall, and I is me and a bunch of writers and like other cultural figures there. And this me, jelani Cobb, from the New Yorker, and it's another writer there, and this writer that is there is literally the top selling memoirs of all time. I mean more than Michelle Obama's Beloved. So I mean, y'all can probably do the research and figure out who. This is right. So me, her and Jelani are sitting on the couch Now. I know her because we hung out a little bit, but Jelani is the guy at the New Yorker right, the black guy at the New Yorker runs.
Speaker 2:Columbia's journalism program. He's on the Pulitzer board. I mean, it really is no bigger kind of literary figure in the culture than Jelani. And Jelani is like looking over and he's like, hey, yeah, so are you a writer? And she's like, yeah, yeah, I'm a writer. Now this is a woman who's probably sold 10 million copies of her book. Now, this is a woman who's probably sold 10 million copies of her book. What are you right? And I'm like like, imagine she sold more copies of her book than usher sold a confessions. You know, like being in a room, ushers in a room with somebody and they're like so what you do you see, like for real, see what I'm saying. Like I just would never. No, what was his response?
Speaker 3:What was his response? What was his response when she? Did she ever say what she wrote?
Speaker 2:She said, yeah, I'm a writer. I don't even know if she mentioned her book, because I think on the other side of that is like a little bit of ego, like if I'm somewhere and I sold 10 million copies of my book, like I'm like, hey, you, you should know who I am yeah, but also the humility, like yeah, all right, and I'll just leave it at that, like if you want to figure out who?
Speaker 2:and then I put me, bro, I'll put them to the side and was like, hey, man, homie, yeah, we should know her so, so, okay, okay.
Speaker 3:So, so, to play devil's advocate here, yeah, you know, do you feel like, well, this kind of answers the question, but like somebody like rl stein, right? Yes, who did goosebumps, is it the same with him? Uh, the woman who wrote harry potter, is it the same for? Her yeah, you know, like, like is it, is it movie? Well, stephen King? Like nobody cares, I just think I think Stephen King is more of a recluse, he's not really a public figure. But like, yeah, you think, if movie adaptations turn into popularized, movies.
Speaker 2:I think what it is is when you're a writer, the work becomes famous, not you, not you that's a good point, yeah yeah, oh, like jk rowling, not her.
Speaker 2:You know jk rowling, I'm sure it can go to the grocery store, but harry potter is obviously. I mean, I, my first book was on bloomsbury, uk or bloomsbury america, which we got out of Bloomsbury UK because of the success of JK Rowling, she, she published that book on Bloomsbury in the UK, so they had a subsidiary in America. So, yeah, you say, you say her name, everybody knows her name. Just like you say Stephen King, just like you say they know the name, but that's not fame, that's like I know her work, right like now the dude who played harry potter that's fame, that's fame.
Speaker 2:You know, jk riley walk right down the red carpet like, uh, we need a name tag for her yeah what do you?
Speaker 5:think happened? What do you think is the difference? Because, like, obviously, years ago you had James Baldwin, you said Tony Morrison, you know um, you know uh um, my man who wrote the Children, david uh Black on his name. But you had some writers that were like very well known. It was maybe because they were on the talk show circuit, or maybe it was just, I think it's the.
Speaker 2:it's one we are in the era of. Well, okay, I'll say for james baldwin. So james baldwin has the benefit of being around when the public intellectual black public intellectual is just coming into being right so, if you think about, before james baldwin, we really only have web du bois that people around the world know as a public intellectual, and that's not even langston. Not even langston, no, not as a public intellectual, langston as an artist, but even him he's before baldwin. Like baldwin is his civil rights era. He's 50s in the 60s.
Speaker 2:I mean, right, really he's early 60s into 80s. Right, he dies in, I think, 80 something. But but the public intellectual is how baldwin, those debates with Norman Mailer, and you know, like he is a figure, because that we care about that, like it's, it's hard. Well, now we got anti, anti intellectualism Right, so when we just we don't care about public intellectuals in the same way that we did in the 1960s, and so I think that it's harder to get that attention. Also, baldwin is writing in an era where it's only 10 of them.
Speaker 2:You know, like, how many of Baldwin's contemporaries can you name? Can't. So it's a smaller pool. We care more about them. Writers are on the Dick Cavett show. They're on you know right. So like that's a harder thing now to do. And I think in this era where everything is here and gone, where there's a push against anti-intellectualism, like so many things like limit the writer, like if I Like Ta-Nahasi coates, is probably the closest thing that we have to a james baldwin like, where he, if he comes out with a book, he's gonna be on the morning show, he's gonna be on the evening show, he's gonna sell out everywhere. But now think about this do y'all know who close? And whitehead is no, not me, okay, colson Whitehead is the most decorated black writer alive. Really, he got the Pulitzer twice. He wrote the Underground Railroad. Nickel Boys is his book. They just put that movie out.
Speaker 5:Yeah, movie yeah.
Speaker 2:He won a Pulitzer for both of those books. He got a MacArthur Fellowship, genius Fellowship. He won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer the same year. Like every award you can think of, he got it Now y'all didn't even know the man's name.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so he could definitely walk down the street without no problems. Yeah, exactly, have dinner and all that. Nobody paid a check.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he all at Ricardo's Word Word. Gotta wait for his table Pack it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he all that Ricardo's yeah, word, word. No, it got away from his table.
Speaker 2:Packoff's getting the table before him, absolutely.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:It should be Packoff's getting the table before them and everybody yeah, then everybody, yeah.
Speaker 5:Packoff's yeah, he get the table for everybody. You know, wait. Yeah, he did it their way, but you know, wait. I want to ask you one more thing about the Ahmaud Arbery thing. Is there something in your research of doing that book and writing it? Was there something that most people don't really know about that case? I mean, we know it, kind of like you know you was jogging and the white guys chased him. Is there some other underlying thing that you might have?
Speaker 2:discovered or is it just kind of is what it is, I think about the case. No, I think the facts were pretty widely um and well known and well reported. I think for me what I discovered in doing that story was how much that young man was loved, so everyone. So how I did the interviewing, like I did that inner, I did that story during the pandemic, so I never went there all of that was over the phone, so I will be talking.
Speaker 2:The first person I talked to was his coach, the guy that started run from my, I think Jason. I'm talking to Jason and, uh, he's answering my questions, but it's a dude in the background that keep talking. I'm like man, who is that? He like, oh man, this is Maude's best friend from since. Just, uh, keep talking. I'm like man, who is that? He's like, oh man, this is Maude's best friend since. You know sandbox. I'm like, oh man, can I talk to him? Sure, then another day I'll talk to him. He telling me stories yeah, so he was with such and such. I'm like man who is that? Oh man, that's Maude's sister. You think, you think you can hook me up with her? Sure, man, let me see. Then next day I'm talking to my sister. My sister said, yeah, I was talking to his girlfriend. I'm like, oh, you think you'll hook me up, and so that's how it would go.
Speaker 2:Every one of them was telling me about another person and they were open enough to talk to me, and I just kept hearing these stories about how much they loved him. Um, and there's even a line in there, um, toward. There's a long list at the end of the um. I'm gonna call it an essay or feature story, some people call it. There's a long list at the end of it and it's like my was this and then my was that and my was this and he was loved and to me that was like the thing that I wanted to get across also, not just to speak for mod, but to speak for philandro castro, to speak for eric, like, oh, these motherfuckers are in love, like whatever else you think about them, they got some people that's like sad than a motherfucker because they gone. I just did this story and just do it last.
Speaker 2:I guess you might have reported in 2023, but I think it came out in 2024 story on Al Sharpton. So I was with. I was with Liv for three months. It's the most reporting I've ever done on a story and one of the things that we did was he gave the eulogy at the woman who got shot through the door. Oh yeah, is it age? No, that wasn't AJ, or maybe it was AJ. She got shot. The white woman shot her through the door in Ocala, florida.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that woman just got convicted actually.
Speaker 2:Yes, she just got convicted, right. So we go there, crump is there. We get in there and Crump is like, hey, man, the family want to meet you. So then we go back into the holding area. I mean this is like literally, we get into the church in five minutes, not even five minutes. Crump is like, hey man, I want to meet you. So Sharpton is like, all right, cool. So we go in the back where just that woman's family and friends are, and her mother walks over to Sharpton. As soon as she meets him, she just lays her head on his shoulder, like like she knew this man her whole life.
Speaker 2:And I was just thinking like all these people in this room loved that young woman. Like that's it. You know what I'm'm saying. Like you, it's really like average shit. But when you reported on it you're like, oh, it's sensational, they got killed like this, and ain't that shit sad. Yes, it is sad. And then the other part of it is there's 50 people in here that love like could tell you a story about what she did and didn't do and the day she did this and that and that. That really like that connected me to the Aubrey piece because I didn't go to Ahmad's funeral. You know, I did take his mama with me to the Pulitzer ceremony, though, wow.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's cool you went to the yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like man ain't no way I could go accept this shit and not honor this man in some way. I was so thankful, man. We had a good time.
Speaker 5:Wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. So you go from this stuff, which is yeah, to basketball, to basketball. We got to talk about your latest book. How do you make that jump?
Speaker 2:It's not even a jump.
Speaker 5:Not to cut you off, but like knowing Mitch, like for me that makes perfect sense. But I know, him you know what I'm saying. But I'm like yeah, of course he would do that. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sledge is one of my main customers. Man, I had that Adidas, I'd come through Jai and make a couple hundred dollars. Did you tell y'all about this?
Speaker 5:No I didn't actually. My bad. Go ahead. The statute of limitations has run out.
Speaker 2:So I told you, I was a little hustler in my younger years and I kept the spirit of hustling. I had a plug at Adidas when I was in graduate school and I would get like shipments of Adidas and then I would go. It started off. I started going to the barbershop but then I started going to the label. So I would go see Sledge at Jai, so I would just come with a duffel bag or something like man, I'm here and Sledge would call everybody down and they'd come get their Adidas. And then I would go to Def Jam and see Lenny S and I would go to wherever Pecos was and go see them.
Speaker 2:I remember one time Lenny told me to come to Baseline. So I go in there and I'm in the hallway in Baseline and it's Kaiser. These are the people that I remember. It's Kaiser, hove, lenny, those are the only people that I can remember seeing and they shooting dice in the hallway. Man and Hove look up and he like, uh, like lenny, who like, who is this? And then he like, oh no, this mitch, he cool man. He got the adidas. He said you got this nigga, and he's selling hot merchandise. And I didn't realize at the time. They was recording the black album oh wow, that was black album time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah that was like my move around in the, in the, and at the same time I was working for a magazine, so I would all, I would also be interviewing. Like I wrote, did I, did I, do you sledge? I don't remember possibly, I don't remember yes I used to write um a lot of stories. I know I profile Peck. I know I profile Lenny A lot of people.
Speaker 1:You would get in there with all the Adidas stuff and then you would interview them. That was smart.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't go in there during that time and do it, but I'm saying those relationships began with me having. Adidas, Also because Ebro was my boy too. So we would end up I would be at the shit sometime with Dante and Ebro, so that that was, um, that was, you know, my music phase, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yes, uh, but so I've always had a love for fashion. My very first piece I ever published, 2001 December, was called Almost Famous and it was about three of my homeboys who almost made it to the league but didn't. So that was my very first piece. My very first column for Esquire was about basketball and the Esquire my editor at Esquire is the guy who brought the fly book to me as an idea. It was his idea for me to do it. So I've always written about sports. I've always been interested in fashion and really written about fashion too. So it did make sense. If you knew me beyond survival, math and residue years.
Speaker 5:It's not out yet. Is it out yet which one? The fashion?
Speaker 2:book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely definitely Best thing that happened to me, not not best. Uh, two exciting things that happened to me. Right after the week that fly came out, I got an email from adam silver. Oh wow, I'm silver was like I love. Let me. I'm gonna tell you what he said now, because this shit is, statue of Limitations is gone. Let me see where they go. Adam Silver, there we go. Dear Mitchell, I ran Scoop Jackson's review of your book and immediately ordered a copy on Amazon. I loved it. We're sending copies of your book to all of our teams and partners, sending copies of your book to all of our teams and partners, and I have no doubt that they'll enjoy reading it and reflecting on nba players influence on fashion and culture over these many decades. I can't wait for the start of the new season. On and off the cart. Regards adam wow for me.
Speaker 2:I was like I mean shit if the commissioner of the commissioner of the nba, yeah, like it, I did my. Whatever I was supposed to do, I did it. And then later, um, my homeboy, strangely one of my big homies. I didn't know, this was cool with dr jay and if you look at. Look, dr jay is all through the second year like that would fly have you wanted to fly?
Speaker 2:you know, definitely one of the fly dudes ever, definitely one of the flyest dudes ever in the league and he gave Dr J the book and they took a picture and he sent it to me and I was like that's it.
Speaker 5:I don't give a.
Speaker 1:that's cool you got to blow that thing up and have it on the wall. Yeah, okay, so give us, give us the rundown, the summary of this book. So this is I'm, I'm gaining that it's it's fashion throughout the eras of the NBA.
Speaker 2:So it is really to me a cultural tableau. So it was me trying to define the eras of NBA fashion, which I didn't think that I could do without talking about the cultural, political, financial forces that created every era. So it's like from the inception of the league, or really right before that, what was happening? What were the players wearing why? What's the next era? Civil rights era. What are they wearing why? What's the next era? 1970s or so? What are they wearing why? What's the next era? Jordan's era, next era, iverson.
Speaker 2:So it's like trying to figure out, like what are the watershed moments? Like where is the fashion taking a turn? What is happening around that time? What images represent that turn, and then me trying to suss why it's happening. So they're really essays on different eras. I mean they're chapters, but they're to me, why it's happening. So they're really essays on different errors. I mean they're chapters, but to me it's essay, and y'all know the root word of essay is to try, to try or attempt. So they're really an attempt at me trying to make sense of different errors of fashion and what brought them into being.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So let me ask you this then, because I'm curious about this At what point? So we're talking about NBA fashion, right, but to me there was a moment when we never really thought of, I think, sports fashion until all of a sudden now, on every show that you ever watch before an NBA game, before an NFL game all of a sudden, the visual that you see is that guy walking in. When did that happen and why? How did we switch to? All of a sudden, the visual that you see is that guy walking in. When did that happen and why?
Speaker 2:How did we switch to? All of a sudden, that became a thing that was very important.
Speaker 3:Well, I think we're talking about what birthed the tunnel.
Speaker 2:The tunnel, that's when we started, right. So the tunnel was birthed by LeBron and Miami, right D-Wade, chris Bosh, lebron that's when we start. I mean they used to kind of show it like man you see Magic walking down the tunnel but to actually focus on the players coming in and the players recognizing that. Now the focus is on me and what I'm wearing. That is the era of the big three in Miami and also the big three in OKC. James Harden and I mean we'll put KD on there, but he ain't really the fashion dude.
Speaker 3:But that is a big thing, russ and James but it wasn't even really James kind of in OKC so Russ was really rough. And then it got to James and Houston.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's also at the moment, and to your point, thomas, it's like the league and the and the businesses started seeing that they can monetize it. So those like when you start seeing people walk by step and repeats, right like I remember seeing an old picture where they houston, had like a whole step and repeat for them to come down the tunnel, I'm like, and it was toyota so I'm like okay, they getting bread, they realize they can get bread now.
Speaker 2:So to me that, yeah, that's a part of it. Right, like I did when the book came out. They, it was the first year that they had the nba play-in tournament and, uh, they did it in vegas and that was the first year they had a. They had the tunnel. So, like I walked down the tunnel with them and they had the, the trope, the play-in tournament trophy, in the middle of the tunnel and the, and I was like, oh, this is a real, like they figured out how to monetize it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm like okay, once corporate America is on it, it ain't all that cool, no more. So like where are you going now?
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh, you think my backlash from um Stern.
Speaker 2:That's what I was about to ask.
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh yeah, definitely I used to go with the big tees and the jeans and the braids and the ice. And then Stern was like, mandated, you had to wear a sport jacket, I think, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, it was that. It was Iverson coupled with Malice in the Palace. Remember they got in that big fight in. Indiana. So, yeah, it was like oh no, y'all could very easily have us like you're going to fuck up the money, right. They're going to be like oh, these Now think about it.
Speaker 2:also, though, hip-hop is already maligned, like we're talking about late 80s with you know Ho, with the big white tees and you know saying nelly coming out with the white, even though cash money you know so like everything in hip-hop I mean, y'all know this better than me is like trending towards. I was I had an interview earlier than this and I was telling the um woman. I was like in the civil rights area era we were leaning into respectability politics, right like in the.
Speaker 2:If you look at the way we dress like slim suits, white shirts, right like in the era people was like fuck your respectability politics, like we gonna dress how we gonna dress, because y'all gonna say whatever you're gonna say. Anyway, if we got on a suit, y'all still gonna call us a thug, so we might as well just do it how we feel. And also it's the era where hip hop started making real money like not rich, but like wealth.
Speaker 2:You know, I was like go back, it's whatever year that was, that they first had a rapper in Forbes Right, like that's when whole, I'm making I'm what is it? 1 million, 2 million, some some I'm till I'm the hundred million.
Speaker 5:man Like million, something, something until I'm the 100 million man like I don't know what year that was, but for me that's like he was in as well.
Speaker 2:But who was master p? That's right, that's right. And everybody that was in forbes was like white t and big chain in it, you know.
Speaker 5:So it's like we don't gotta do that no more to get no money yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a yeah, and that was essentially because, like I said, it's a runway level now. Yeah yeah, they do the stuff right off the runway and wearing it. You got those four or five seconds like focused on just you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The huge ancillary businesses, big stylists that are involved now, exactly yeah. Then in guys' shit, because they know, know, you know I could get him to wear this.
Speaker 1:So he's four or five seconds and this is like a free, free commercial, yeah, whatever yeah and now it's extended into the w, the w, nba so with the rise of the w? Nba I think the last like year. You saw that it, the fashion, took a whole other level. It was great oh yeah definitely, definitely yeah so what are you working on next? What's's the next big thing? Can you give us a little tease?
Speaker 2:A novel. It's called John of Watts, about a black man from Watts who, who actually spent time in Oregon space on a true story who started a group to train at risk youth to become elite athletes and then it became a cult. Well, he started, they started being really harsh with the training and then it became a cult. Well, he started, they started being really harsh with the training. They ended up becoming a cult and his daughter was actually killed by some of the members in his coat and they got disbanded. But it's really back to my, not back to my roots. It's fiction. It is connected to sports. He was a former basketball player, actually tried out for the Blazers. Um and uh, it's really me writing about home. That's one thing that I'm really like. Fly is kind of an aberration, not necessarily because basketball is such a big culture in portland, but, um, I'm committed to writing about home. Like, if you think about what baldwin did, he was really grounded in new york city. You think about what Tony North did.
Speaker 2:He's always writing about Ohio. You think about Edward P Jones. He's writing about the DMV. You think about Faulkner. He's writing about Mississippi, or a fictional town in Mississippi, right? So for me it's like I want to see the world through the lens of home, and this book really allows me to do that of home and, uh, this, this book, really allows me to do that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. All right, I gotta ask you one more question. Yeah, emerging writers who are out there, who want to be, who want to get into the career of writing, like what's, what's, what advice do you have for?
Speaker 2:um, the same thing. Mickey would probably say learn your craft. Um I, uh, I was listening to dot do his, um, his interview with um, with ebro, and one of the things he said I think I wrote it down as a quote. Let me see I hope I did. Uh, he said my quotes. He said respect the art form and it'll get you where you need to go.
Speaker 2:And I think that is this. I mean, are you willing to put in 15 years on? And I'm not saying do it, but if you ain't willing to do it, maybe this ain't for you. And so I hear people like, man, I want to. I got a story. And I'm like okay, everybody, you see walking, got a story. Like are you willing to learn form? Are you willing to learn what a sentence is? Are you willing to learn inaugural? Are you willing to learn free and indirect discourse? Are you willing to learn the four or five or ten templates that you need to structure this story? And like, if you not do something else, or, or, or, or. Don't bring it to me, cause like I'm, I'm, I'm a different, I'm a different kind of writer. Like I'm, I'm not out here writing for the bestseller list, I'm out actually writing for eternity. You know like what, what does it, what does it feel like and what do you need to do to create something that is going to exist for my kids, kids?
Speaker 2:kids right, and that's still speaking to what's happening with humanity. So so I think that's a different thing than, like, the kind of immediate success that you could get with a pop hit, which I kind of like like a poke fiction book yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 5:The pressure comes. I remember um and I no shots to her because I enjoyed her work, but I remember kind of hearing about all the stuff the sister soldier went through. Yeah, she dropped when, you know, went closest Dead. It blew up so big. Yeah, I don't know if she was prepared for it to that level. No, you know like everybody could optionate and you know make movies and it kind of took a toll on her because it was such a big book, you know.
Speaker 2:And she was pioneering in that sense because she was the first one to push through Like she really did. I mean, we wouldn't have had them. Tables on the 125th without Sister. Soldier yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5:Everybody read Coldest Winter Ever Like everybody read that book.
Speaker 2:What was the one that came after her? She's still around, terry Woods, remember her Wow.
Speaker 5:From Philly. Yeah, terry, I forgot about her. Yeah, she got a couple of drinks made in the films too. Wow, that's right. Yeah, yeah, wow, yeah. That was the whole thing, you know.
Speaker 1:So what classes do you teach at Arizona State? Let's bring it back to where we started.
Speaker 2:Man well, the beauty of teaching now is I teach one class a semester.
Speaker 1:Oh that's easy, so right now teaching writing workshop. Yeah man, listen man In.
Speaker 2:New York I used to teach sometimes up to nine classes at three or four. Before I was a full-time faculty at NYU I would be teaching at Medgar Evers, john Jay, nyu and College of New Rochelle. Sledge used to see me coming out of College of New Rochelle. I'm glad you should see me coming out of College of New Rochelle up there at Studio Museum and that's running around.
Speaker 2:you know, deep in Brooklyn y'all know where Mega Everest is running all the way back up to Harlem NYU, then going to 57th street. I was doing that shit for like 7-10 years moving around like that. That's why I had to have the meditas.
Speaker 5:There you go see, now you got writer's fame yeah, right the pill surprise got you down to one class now you're good.
Speaker 1:yeah, that was a master class in writing, right there it was, it was Wow. Yeah, mitchell, thank you man. I could sit here and listen to you talk all day long and I got to go get this book now Fly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, check it out, Let me know what y'all think. Man, man, uh, absolutely same effort into that. You know, like I, I was thinking like mickey. I remember hearing you like I mean, sledge brought me on like I don't know shit 20 years ago to 18, something like that and just like you can hear one when somebody care about the language and you know like get to rapping, like when somebody actually cares about language and the art form, and for me that's across everything, like it's in fly, it's in any column you read of mine. There's a, there's a column, um, that I did on kanye. Uh, it was some crazy shit.
Speaker 1:He did like two or three years ago that doesn't help us narrow it down right there. All, all right, hold on.
Speaker 2:Hold on. I want y'all to hear this because I want you to know what I mean. Let me see Kanye Esquire Mitchell. There we go yeah, Okay, yeah. The title of the essay is yeah, yo, yay. You are a racist by proxy. I should have republished this shit.
Speaker 5:He doing the same shit right now, yeah, yeah this is the opening.
Speaker 2:Yo, yay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a trolling provocateur par excellence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay, you're a free thinker and iconoclast even. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay. You've released hella great music over the years. Tsunami many a fashion wave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay. Kudos to the activist bent of bush. Don't care about black people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay. Big facts beyonce should have won. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay. Points for the benevolence of the donda academy. Yeah, yeah, you reached that billy round with the big homie. Yeah, yeah, we should consider the mantra of your, the mania of your mental health struggles. Yeah, yeah, the trauma of a near-death crash. Yes, oh yes, deep compassion for the eternal hurt of losing your mother. That's how that starts. And if I were to break that down like in my mind y'all remember that song. Um uh, it's burner boy's first hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know that shit got big because people thought it was a Kanye song and they were searching it in Apple Music.
Speaker 5:I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how I got it. So that chorus was in my head when I was doing the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, like, like that's a column, that I didn't have to do that for a column, but for me it's like if you're not willing to put that kind of work in on a column, then don't do it, or don't come talking to me about writing.
Speaker 3:Talk to somebody else who ain't gonna do that yeah, I'm gonna give you the basics yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, mitchell, honestly, man, we need an article on pendulum make, yeah, and it should be about they care about the language, I mean I don't see that's a great point. Yeah, you know, because we I gotta send you one because we really care about the language you know, yeah, yeah, send me, I'll text you I got you give me. You better get him a book, mickey, you know I'm gonna get him a book, you know I'm gonna get him he will.
Speaker 1:I'll make sure you get a book. If he doesn't make sure you get a book. Mickey, you know I'm going to get him a book.
Speaker 2:You know I'm going to get him a book. He will.
Speaker 4:I'll make sure you get a book if he doesn't make sure you get a book. Yeah, but yeah, man, I enjoyed hanging out with y'all.
Speaker 2:Man. I was spanking out brothers, man. You know, like you, my day one in wild.
Speaker 5:You, basically my day two shit.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5:Half my life I didn't know you yeah, for real, it's been a long time. Yeah, I'm glad we did this. I'm not going to come out to Arizona to check you out, but next time you come Arizona I'll give it a shot for you restaurants you got the weather you got a little bit of shopping if you want to do the boutique shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh, this is the travel and tourism page for Arizona.
Speaker 1:right here a little bit of shopping. If you want to do the boutique shit, yeah, and you know, just come out. This is the travel and tourism page for Arizona right here.
Speaker 3:They got the suns? I guess, yeah, they got the suns.
Speaker 5:You probably know. You know what I'm saying. There's a little something out there.
Speaker 2:It ain't ATL man, but you know, we all right. There's a little something, though. There's a little A little something, something, though.
Speaker 5:A little something something, though. It's all right, it's all right, cool. Thanks a lot, man. I really appreciate it, bro, all right man Later.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, folks, that's our show. Tune in to Unglossy, the coding brand and culture on Apple Podcasts, spotify or YouTube, and follow us on Instagram at Unglossy Pod to join the conversation. Until next time, I'm Tom Frank.
Speaker 5:I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1:Smicky, that was good.
