program, but a dark, a light, a bright, the designs of Dorothy Liebes. And so it's, I think it's a landmark exhibition, and we're so happy to have it sponsored by a lot of people. So I'm going to go through because there's, we really would like to thank anyone who's in the audience, who was associated with any of these foundations and organizations. A big thank you to the Kobe Foundation, the Decorative Arts Trust, the Smithsonian Americans with Women's History Initiative, a program from the Smithsonian's American Women's History Museum, the Tara Foundation for American Art. We also received federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee. Generous support is also provided by the Lily Ockincloss Foundation, the Lenore Taney Foundation, American Team Family Archive, and the Samuel Kress Foundation administered by the Foundation for the Advancement of Conservation. And support is also provided by Elizabeth Whalen, the Joseph Anani Abler Foundation, and Patsy Orlowski. So a lot of textile lovers out there. So thank you. So I'm pleased to welcome the contemporary artist and weaver, Chloe Benson-Hall, who was renowned for her innovative use of materials and technology. In 2022, we were happy to host Chloe as one of our Smithsonian Artists Research Fellows at the Cooper Hewitt and the National Museum of American History, where she explored magnetic core memory, hand woven memory devices for NASA's Space Museum. Chloe is a French American artist whose work combines textiles with performance and emerging technologies to consider the relationship between beliefs and materials, text and textile. Inspired by her own intergenerational history of migration, her work considers textiles to be containers of information, caring language, stories and belief systems woven in by the human mind sometimes covertly as embodied or coded language. She has collaborated with Google Arts and Culture on conductive thread technologies to allow textiles to speak through touch. Upcoming projects include a residency with MIT Media Lab, researchers in 2024 conducting new research around textile and memory. And Chloe is going to give a short presentation about her work and then with followed by discussion with our colleague, Alyssa Author, who is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design. Previously she served as Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of Art History and Museum Studies Program at the University of Colorado. She also held an adjunct curator position at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and co-directed feminism and co-art sex politics, a series of public programs exploring feminist issues through the lens of creative practice. Author's exhibitions at MAD include Museum of Art and Design include Surface Step, the decorative actor Miriam Shapiro, which examined the influence of the feminist reappropriation of craft and the decorative and the work of a diverse range of artists, and Queer Maximilism, a solo show of the genre-defying artist and costume designer Matthew Flower, aka Machine Dazzle. So in a moment, after you have silenced your phone and know that the program is going to be recorded and live streamed. So during the Q&A, if you could please wait for the microphone so that we can get your question recorded and then we will follow up with an answer. So thank you everyone and welcome Chloe. Hello. Okay, so I'm really excited to be here because I actually I went to Parsons, so I know that there are some Parsons students or affiliated Parsons people here. And so I did a program at Parsons called Integrated Design, which doesn't really mean much to a lot of people, but it really represents taking multiple points of view and kind of combining them together in a kind of systemic thinking. So we consider each material and each object to be a world, a belief system, a production system. And I think I was reminded recently that no material and body is taking multiple points of view and putting them together than textiles, because of course you do this and this. And so I really look at textiles and objects as how to bring together many points of view and many backgrounds in one place using both language and different craft techniques. So I wanted to start kind of I know today some of the topics are around textiles and technology. And we like to break them up into two words, but I really wanted to kind of use some of the objects from the collection since we're in this incredible institution and kind of format textiles as technology. The word actually technology comes from Techna, which is art or craft and logos, which is really a reason or word in some cases. So technology is really just a material with a purpose or a reason. And there's really no better kind of representation of that historically than textiles around the world. So I took three different textiles from different eras. So the first one is a kipu, which is a South American textile that we used in record keeping and making knots as a kind of coded language to know livestock. There were even contracts and agreements that were actually used in the form of knots. The second is a tunic fragment. And I kind of used it because it's the same technique that I practice. So it's tapestry weaving. And of course, a lot of the symbols relate to belief systems and kind of narratives from that region. And the last one is a body of objects that I studied here at the Kipu Huet, which is a metallic lace. And of course, metallic lace is very connected to different forms of power, not only because having access to metal is having access to power, but also the more complex and detailed the lace, the more powerful the person wearing it. So I started with this body of work. This is some of the first kind of iterations of creating textiles that are coded or programmed in some way. So after Parsons, I learned how to weave in Japan. And I came across this technique by which you actually use up old manuscripts and calligraphy books to weave and mend fishermen's garments. So it's kind of a way in which you can actually transform text written language into a textile. And also I love the fact that there's a trace of the writing. And you can only see kind of a portion of the text. And the other part becomes invisibilized, sort of in the same way that you can't really read a person's full story, just by seeing them. And I took in this series, poems that were written between nations on care packages during the COVID pandemic. So I don't know if anyone saw this, but some of the nations were writing poems on the care packages. So China to Italy wrote this poem, which kind of relates to how we are all the same in some way and kind of welded together, despite differences in geographic location. And so there was an interesting way in which it was an international collaboration that was, I guess, bringing different people together. And so this is another one with a difference. I think this was between Japan and China. And I thought it was really interesting that different nations that were even historically at war were actually finding ways to communicate through poetry. And I wanted to show kind of some of the process of this technique. So the text gets written on on the paper, which is traditionally like a Japanese mulberry paper and then stripped into different strands, rubbed and then spun as a yarn. So this is kind of how it looks once it's actually spun and made. And the choice of the text is often related to how to kind of combine different backgrounds or different stories and in one place. So I write some of the text, sometimes I source them, it kind of depends on the body of work. And so I guess coming out of some of that body of work that relates to how to write text and have language become a textile. It seemed kind of inevitable that I would actually look to programmed materials, because of course, language is the architecture of all of our program devices. And so using text as something that could be integrated into a textile seemed super interesting. So I worked on a I did a residency with the Google Arts and Culture Foundation in 2019, where we were given access to different engineers. And we came up with this installation. And it was like the initial discussions were really funny because they were like, we'd love for you to do something that's universal. We were thinking the color white. And I was like, oh, okay. So I actually decided that it would be really interesting to highlight the opposites that are present in one notion. So depending on the part of the world, white is both a symbol of mourning, it's a symbol of sanctity, or the sacred, but it can also be a symbol of oppression, depending on how it's contextualized and presented. So I came up with six words that are white on white, and worked with this incredible composer whose name is Caroline Shaw, who had just done a collaboration with Kanye West. So it was really nice of her to work with me. And she she basically composed all of the work, the sounds for the letters. So when you ran your hand across the tapestries, each letter would sing its own sound. And so I I wanted to show you the first. So the the system that actually sets off the interactive component is a conducted thread. So the it was a copper thread that was encased in a polyester casing for textile people. And it was woven into the tapestry and then connected to this kind of interactive system. And so I kind of I'm they made a really nice video. So I think it's easier for me to show you the video. So you can see how it actually works. So the final the final tapestry was all of the sounds remixed together so they could actually touch the last tapestry and discover all of the words that was around the installation. And I asked Caroline to compose sounds that were both lovely and beautiful, but also sounds where she was like losing her breath or suffocating as a way to kind of create friction in the experience of the word because of course, the symbolism around white is wonderful in some context and traumatic in others. So and then I wanted to show a some more, I guess recent works around performance. So I, you know, in the in the Google work, there is quite a performative relationship to to text. And I, I was trying to kind of look at how could text become a sort of performance in the same way that in certain sacred texts, it's only written with consonants and not vowels. So the reader actually has to like read in the vowel and actually create the meaning as they're reading the text. And it's sort of a way of breathing life into the text because, of course, vowels are breath uninterrupted by the tongue. And as an extension of that, I started to think about if I'm talking about the body, setting off sounds within the context of an installation, then perhaps I should be talking about my relationship to my own body and how a body can actually carry a narrative that's woven into the garment that one is wearing. So this performance actually took conductive thread that was embroidered on on an old I think it's, it's my grandfather's like tailored shirt. And I embroidered some letters that set off different sounds depending on the region on the body that's activated. So I had I think it's English on the neck French on the shoulders, hebraic song on the forearms, and then also North African tambourines, I think it's on the on the hips to kind of symbolize different moments in my own family history that can be expressed through movement and and performance. So I also have a video for that so that you can have a little case and apologies for people who don't speak French. There are some segments in French. I remember the words round, embraced by lips, claim this language. Tu me disais, on est le peuple du text, du champ, du désert. All the sounds were recorded live and had different sound systems within the space that were recording the sounds coming from different parts of the body. And I really wanted to talk about the fellowship that I did here seems appropriate. So as I mentioned, I came here looking at magnetic core memory, which is a 1960s technology that allowed for the NASA space missions to have a memory storage item so that the information that was programmed into the computers that were going to the moon had a way to actually store the information and then also, I guess, draw on it when they needed to. And within the 1950s and 60s context where I think home weaving was actually becoming more and more common, they ended up looking to the frame loom techniques so that they could actually use the binary code that is inherent to textile structure since you're going either above or below the thread to create a rewritable memory system. So there were essentially horizontal and vertical conductive threads that had little magnetic cores in the middle and then a diagonal thread that would read essentially which ones were magnetized and which ones were not. So depending on which cores were activated, it would create a kind of code that could be rewritten depending on how they were sending electrical signals. And then I looked at lace as a kind of comparative element, specifically lace in the context of the archives of the Cooper Hewitt and kind of looking at how met metallic lace was also a kind of container of information and a container of power. And of course, initially, like my first research suggested that magnetic lace is way more complex and difficult to make than magnetic core memory, which is actually pretty technically simple as far as how they were made. But of course, I think magnetic lace because it was mechanized pretty quickly. The recognition of lace as a quite difficult and complex structure was was pretty forgotten. And, you know, I think when I was looking into some of the objects which I wanted to show here, you can really see some of the similarities in the different looping structures or kind of the ways in which I don't know, they're just like both pretty visually aesthetic and kind of pleasing. So I think considering metallic lace as these objects that both kind of symbolize power. So whoever had access to both the metal as far as like the nation that was producing it and whoever had the more complex lace structure was actually like you can see in some of those like old paintings, like a very, very complex color, for example. And those were often like social symbols of power and status, I think in the same way that our contemporary technologies are actually quite connected to how we kind of establish and and assert power. And so, yeah, I just I kind of kept looking at them and kind of considering how could we make a contemporary technology that both harness this kind of social and contextual relationship to power and then also like a material and programs version of power that I think magnetic core memory really symbolized and kind of represented. And so yeah, I started looking at the different structures. And so I'm this is like very, very recent, but I'm working on now different systems for how we can create and like an actual technology so that the the textile can actually remember someone's presence and then actually pass it on to the next person who is coming through the installation and actually reading the information in the same way that a magnetic core memory is reprogrammable or rewriteable. And I ended up pitching the project to the the MIT media lab because I think a lot of their labs are actually working on developing new textiles. And I found this in the American History Archives, which links the production of magnetic core memory to MIT. And of course, you know, a lot of women were making these handmade objects in like the basement at MIT. And it really set the stage for a system in which hand labor in tech becomes invisible. Because after the production of magnetic core memory by hand at MIT, they were outsourced to different factories first in Japan, and then China. So it really kind of create the system in which programming labor is the only visible labor in tech and the hand assembly of all of our electronic objects are invisible, even though they are for the most part handmade. So yeah, I think they were really interested in kind of considering how to make something contemporary that's both handmade and also technological. And then last but not least, I just wanted to kind of showcase one last project, which I feel strongly about because I think there's also a lot of room for innovation and improvement in how we use our plant based materials as part of an art production process. And I've been looking at different materials that are in some way or another invasive, either locally invasive, or we call them exotic invasive, which is like the technical term in the scientific community, but you should really find another one. And and kind of looking at how the stories of I guess the story of a culture can also be told through its plants. So if you look at what materials or what plants are present on a given territory, you can actually know what cultures that nation has been to sometimes even colonized and brought back with brought back with them the plants from from said foreign countries. So and of course, I'm, I'm particularly interested because, you know, my family is from a rather international background that spans across three different continents and over like 800 years. So, you know, I think it's it's easy to be to think of oneself as an invasive plant species, depending on where you find your roots and kind of put roots down, so to speak. So I actually decided to go myself and harvest stinging nettle, which is really painful, but definitely worth it because historically in Europe, stinging nettle has been they call it the linen of the poor, because it's actually really shiny, but it's a it's like a very potent fiber making plant. So I ended up looking at how how to actually revive that industry and kind of consider how it can be since it's present all over the territory, how we can actually use it to make objects and different artworks. So this is kind of some of the process of when it wasn't singing in the face. And then I was also working with some some people who work with invasive materials. So these are they're actually the material that's used to make Japanese mulberry paper. So it was brought back in the 18th century by colonial explorations to Japan by French botanists, and then planted in the south of France, and then it became completely invasive in the south of France. And it's today considered as kind of one of the like ecological disasters of the south of France. So I work with a paper maker who actually harvest the invasive plants and then use them to make tapestries in my studio. So I think I also I brought another video because I combined these plant based materials with conductive materials because I don't really I feel that it's important that both natural and technological materials can coexist. Also because it's a condition of our time to have both technological and handmade materials, and kind of thinking of how can these plant based materials kind of sing or tell their own story in some form or another. So a lot of the text actually includes some some tension. So they're both like violent or tender kind of gestures in the same way that invasive plant species are often brought back to a territory because there's a fascination for the foreign culture in some way or another. So taking a plant from said place is a way of capturing it and kind of keeping keeping it with oneself. And then kind of how over time that relationship to said foreign culture can also become fraught or traumatizing for both parties. And so here's one piece with with both both of them have invasive plant species. But now at least I wanted to show like a similar version but with the same thing at all this time. So slowly I've been making compositions in which the text actually becomes invisible. So the forms of the letters become a basis for the drawing rather than a text that you can actually read. Thank you. Hello everyone. Hello Chloe. I think it was on already. Do that again. Yep. Yep, it's there. Okay. So I have so many questions and thank you for that introduction. It was really helpful. But maybe we could just start by talking about your first introduction to advanced technologies in textiles. You mentioned you were at Parsons, but did this interest come before then? Or was it even completely outside of an art context? Yeah, I actually I after Parsons, I kind of moved around to learn how to weave for a couple years. And I ended up in the Bay Area for about two years. And someone introduced me to some, you know, in the Bay Area everyone loves to connect people. And someone introduced me to someone at Google who was working on a new textile technology. And I think at the time I didn't really think twice about it. I thought of another way to pick up your phone who needs that. And when I was actually going into the tapestry workshop for a residency in Paris, I think I thought again about that time in San Francisco. And so I ended up just sending an email to the people over at Google to card it was called and asking them for their support because I knew that as an individual artist, I would never have the funds or the resources to work with technology. But I really wanted to make a textile that could sing somehow. And so I think that's kind of how I ended up kind of going into that field. So that's interesting because in preparation for today, I did a little research on the Google jacquard project because I hadn't heard of it. And so they have a couple of videos online about it. I think the project has been closed down from what I understand. And I was just curious about, okay, first of all, why are they using the term jacquard? Like what is their objective here? And you you joked about the fact like, oh, great, it's another way to like answer your phone, which was exactly my response to like, what is this really about? Because it seemed to me they're they were looking for applications in people's clothing, right, so that you could touch something and you could in fact answer your phone. And I don't know where that went. But my other question to you, or it prompted another series of questions about like practicalities on the ground with these collaborations that artists get involved in. Like, did you just show up as an observer? Did you know anything about the technology where you beginner? Did they have an idea of what they wanted you to do? Like, how did that work out? Yeah, I, I, you know, I thought, like their technology seemed really incredible because the idea of having less screens in one's life to actually control our devices like seemed like a really wonderful way to think. And when I ended up getting into contact with them and they, they sort of, it was me and then two other artists. And so the first thing that we did is we went to the arts and culture headquarters in Paris and then had like a full day of exchanges and kind of discussions. And I sort of was working with an engineer who actually I still work with today, whose name is Jonathan Tennant.  And he was really sensitive to kind of what, what I wanted to do. And he asked me a bunch of questions. And, you know, like engineers are incredible because they're like, well, we could do this and we could do this and you can do it like this. And so there's always like five different ways to do the thing that you want to do. And so he was really fielding different options for how it could work. And then I was kind of saying, no, it would be better if it's more like this and more like this. And then at the same time, we were both having discussions with the composer, Caroline, to kind of ask her to do, because the problem is when you're dealing with something that's interactive, no one is going to spend more than about five seconds on a given region. And so you have to make sounds that are rather short, because otherwise the person isn't going to get the full experience. But then, you know, he, of course, was like, yeah, we can also make time based sounds. So if you stay on it longer, the sound changes and it evolves. So I think it was like a really bottomless pit as far as like what we could do. But it was great to have him there. And I think he really taught me a lot about how the technology actually works. So I was like learning and then saying what I thought would be really interesting from like a sensitive point of view and kind of keeping the magic of the interaction alive. Yeah. And then yeah, he was ringing all that. So they so the engineer was working specifically with conductive threads, like that was their project. Yeah, well, he worked on other projects as well. He specializes in hardware technologies and programming different hardware technologies. But he knew Jakard super well. And, you know, Jakard is really like you can really turn anything metallic into a sensor if you hook it up to the right technologies. And so he knew the technology from other projects that he'd done. But then he was able to kind of like direct me as far as like okay, so that's interesting. That was my other question. Like, did the engineer have any experience with weaving and thread technology to begin with? And he this person did? No, actually, he didn't. Well, he actually started weaving during our residency. So I like gave him like a listener's frame. No, no, he got really excited. Like I gave him a frame loom and he's like, I want to know how this works. I see. And yeah, he started weaving actually for the project. So now he kind of knows how to weave because the other question would for me and just another technical question like these conductive threads that they had available was like the weight or the tension in like conflict with what you wanted to use. Like could they all be used on the loom in an easy way together? Or was that a challenge? No, I actually tapestry is really great because in tapestry because the tension is so tight, you can actually really like insert because the conductive thread is so tiny, you could actually insert it between two layers of other materials so that it would be completely invisible. And so it was super compatible with said technique. And because it was very resistant because they worked with traditional craftspeople in Japan to make the actual yarn. It was very flexible and like very adapted to weaving because other threads would just break if you pull on it too hard. Yeah, and I think you've brought us a show in tell that is related to these jacquard weavings that's using the conductive threads and I had a chance to look at it earlier and you'd like people to come up later and try it out. But I love the way you put it in this little frame and I was really struck by the fact that I couldn't see those threads. I'm used to looking at I think maybe less sophisticated versions of the conductive threads in weavings whether it's very obvious. And so maybe you could talk a little bit about this because I know these are special threads here.  And it's attached to what is, looks to me a hard drive is that right? Portable battery. Oh, it's a battery. Yeah, it's just so I don't have to plug it in tomorrow. Yeah, I've been working with Jonathan in the last two years on miniaturizing a lot of the systems so that it actually fits behind a single tapestry without having to sell like a computer or bring a computer to installation. And so yeah, the conductive threads are woven into this tapestry right here. And then it's very beautiful. And I think you wanted to say a little bit more about these threads, which are important to you. Yeah, and some of the so there's conductive thread in it. And then there's also 19th century silks that so I still work with the National Tapestry Workshop in Paris on getting their old materials like leftovers and things like that. So I got these 19th century silk threads that I'm weaving with. So a lot of them are natural, naturally dyed, actually. And yeah, they're like 300 years old. So they're really gorgeous and still so vibrant in terms of their their color. Well, they've been like in a cellar somewhere. So perfectly preserved. And now just thinking about the Dorothy Liebes show and her work as a designer, collaborating with companies that are inventing new materials and then creating new consumer markets. Are you interested in taking any of your artistic work towards a commercial market? Have you thought about that? Yeah, I think that was part of the the impetus to miniaturize everything so that it didn't stay in the realm of research or kind of testing. So I ended up developing this like tiny system that can fit behind the the actual textile and then other materials. I'm working on getting like we walk through the Dorothy Liebes show earlier. And I'm like, I'm so impressed by how she managed to get these industrial partners to collaborate with her because actually getting an industrial partner to collaborate with you is really more difficult than than it sounds. So I'm actually trying to find a way to work with industrial partners to develop like stinging nettle yarns because I think there's a lot of fibers and materials in France specifically where in the 90s and early 2000s they were paying farmers and different people to actually shut down their operations so that they could be producing fiber and yarns outside of France. And so now there's like a revival of how to actually create local materials in France. And it sounds like in the United States too. And so I'm trying to work with these industrial partners to create nettle yarn that can be woven in tapestry and kind of like find a way to have access to all of this material, which is really more difficult than it sounds. And maybe that's the direction that these collaborations go, right about issues of sustainability in the environment as opposed to Dorothy Liebes' time where it was all about kind of experimenting with a new material that a chemical company has devised and is trying to figure out what to do with it, right? Yeah, I mean, I think honestly, having that technical capacity and knowing how to transform materials is as important to the culture as, you know, actually making more sustainable or more plant based materials, because if we lose that knowledge of how to transform our materials into resources for the general population, then I don't know, we might as well just export everything. I mean, as I was watching the performance of, I think it's body memory, the one with the dress shirt, I immediately thought of ways that that might be used. Well, let's say you have limited speech or you've lost speech and you're in a situation where you need to demonstrate to someone where pain is in your body, right? Like, I can imagine so many different applications for that. It was really wonderful to just, I don't can you tell us a little bit about how you approach manufacturers and what inroads you've even made, if any, to work with, with industry, because I know it's difficult. I mean, like, you know, I'm going to be at the Media Lab in 2024 at MIT, and I think a lot of their work is also dedicated to finding different, like a lot of the newest technologies actually in SPART textiles are in the medical fields. So finding ways to actually monitor heart rate and things like that, like those are the first even are wearable technologies. So often actually looking to the medical field is the best way to find, like what's actually happening within the that sector. Yeah, interesting. I have to say, though, I think like that, that piece is like super appropriate. Also just like for a larger performance, like, I think absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Interesting. Where did the performance interests come in for you, you know, as an artist or as a student? Yeah, I, I actually, I ended up having a studio visit at some point with I with some professors from from Yale. And I think they were telling me like, Oh, you talk about, you know, the body in your work a lot, but we never see an actual body in the work. You know, we think you should you should be in the work more. And so I started some of the first performances that I did were just kind of playing with how to present craft gestures as forms of writing. So taking different threads off of my body and then weaving them directly. And I found that to be extremely cathartic because as a weaver and a maker, I'm the only person who gets to touch the material or gets to have access to the material and no one else ever really has access or visibility on the labor that it really takes to make these objects. And so I think presenting some of those works in performance was kind of the beginnings of how to create more performative ways of moving and expressing like more complex stories because in movement, you can create moments of something that happens rather than something that's fixed on a wall. You're reminding me that I think the first time I experienced like advanced technology and textiles, it was in fact through performance and there's a connection to the MIT lab that you're going to because there was a woman there by the name of Leah Buickley who invented a flexible Arduino and she specifically was looking to engage dancers and women with this forms, the Arduino, which had not really made its way into their craft circles or choreography performance in general. And I learned how to use one of those lily pad arduinos that she made with a textile for the very first time through a program that I did with her. So I just thought of that. And so maybe there's just a natural connection there between performance and these technologies, especially wearable, like a lot of textile technology started as wearable technology. So I there's definitely a connection between like the relationship to the body. And of course, a lot of the interactive components are activated by the water content in our body. So I think there's a big attention to the body in general and interactive and technological textiles. Interesting, I could go on and on. I have a lot of other questions, but it's I want to make sure there's time for questions from the audience. So maybe we should do that. And then if there's a lull, I'll have a few other questions. I doubt that's going to happen though. So let me just repeat that we need people to talk into the microphone in this period. But if you'd like to raise your hand, I think Alexa, you've got a someone's passing. Oh, there it is, the microphone. Any questions out there? I love the the designs in your tapestries. And I was wondering what those are based on. Yeah, I, I work a lot from, like text as a basis. So the process is usually that I'll print out the text and then using the shapes from the actual letters to actually extend the lines of the letters into a proper drawing. And a lot of them take on kind of the like rhizomes kind of like designs. So in the same way, and it sort of relates both to like the natural elements of like neural networks and also root systems. And so that's kind of where they they intersect because a lot of those pieces are actually relating to natural materials and kind of how rooting takes place. You were talking about invasive species and plant material. And I'm thinking of the the part that hemp used to play hemp fibers used to play in our technology in terms of of rope and you know, cables and whatnot. Do you have any plans to to include hemp in hemp fibers in your your your work going forward? Yeah, yeah, they're they're also it's one of the industries that they're trying to revive in Europe, of course, because hemp business is a particular one because it was connected to the growth of cannabis. And so it was often outlawed because of the connection with the cannabis connection. And so they're trying to kind of go back and revive some of those ways of making because they they grow super well, I think here and in Europe. And there's I'm looking like this is one of the industry partners kind of connections, but I'm actively looking for new industry partners who actually are making hemp again. So yeah, it's definitely in the program. And they make some like really we think of hemp as this really rough material, but I've actually found hemp that's really soft. So there's ways now also of manufacturing hemp that makes for really like gentle and soft materials, which is great. I have another question, but I happen to just have read the book by Git Skolkund on hemp fibers, I don't cannabis. And it's like the whole history of cannabis and all the related fibers might be something of interest for you. Thank you. But what I what I wanted to mention, what things listening to your mostly the breathing sounds that you incorporate into your work. There's an term that the I'm not Indians of South America in Bolivia have, which is some muti, which is the spirit of breath, which is also the name of a textile type. So I love that. It's very nice. You could read Penny Dransert has some interesting writing on that. Okay, thank you. Oh, two more up here. You both were this is really inspiring. I have a question about power, like how do you think about electricity or where that might evolve? You mean like how I how I think about what it means or how I use it in my work? All right. Yeah, it's like I think the word power obviously has like different connotations. And of course, before we had electricity, power was used in completely different contexts. And of course now power is powerful, you know, like access to electricity is also power in many ways. But I think in the I'm trying to look for also new and different solutions as far as like creating textiles that are also self sufficient as far as like how they get their power. So now a lot of people are trying to develop solar panels that are at the scale of a thread. So you can actually weave in your power supply or power gathering supply in the textile. And so you could have the whole system within the textile. It's both catching information to actually supply the electricity and then also create the the interactive component as well. So I think that's something I would really like to move towards slowly. Yeah. Such a reach. I'm wondering as a oh, oh, OK. As someone working with the written and spoken word and in multiple languages in your work. The act of translation occurs to you and how you find that whether that influences your act of translation of technology in a physical way. I'm going to have you write my artist statement. Yeah. I mean, I think if when you grow up between cultures, like you're always translating, you know, you're translating one set of values to the other set of values beyond, of course, the actual words. So I think working between different media, you're always translating, like between what the engineer thinks is, you know, a technique to what the weaver thinks is a technique. And so there is something really interesting there. And often like the glitch or the misunderstanding actually creates like a super interesting space for innovation and kind of like misunderstanding can even be like a whole tool to create like new. And it's I always find that it's really interesting like not to become too perfect in either. You know, like I I weave and I'm a weaver, but I really try like not to go too deeply in it either because otherwise the technique like takes up all the space. And then I know a little bit about programming, but I haven't really dived into it enough. I like to stay a little bit of a, yeah, forder in that sense. Yeah. Thank you. Do you have a dream project when it comes to advanced technology and textiles? Tell us. Yeah, I I think the performance component. Yeah, I would love to do something with a dance company because I think there's a lot of space for creating performances where a sound starts in one body, continues in another and finishes in a third person. And I like that would require so many resources and people to, you know, believe in it that, yeah, that's definitely something that like down the line, I would really love to do. Interesting. OK. Well, we're going to look out for that anyone who's with this New York City ballet available. Other questions. Oh, we have another one here. Thank you. It's a short question. I just wondered about the color like when you dye the textiles, you use natural dyes. So I actually don't dye the textiles. I only get secondhand yarns from the tapestry workshop. So it's nice because I get like the names of artists. So like sometimes like Sunya Derune or like others from like the 20th century will like pop up in my yarns. And so I'm really like adapting to whatever they give me, which is a very sacred collaboration. I'm curious how the sound comes across without a speaker. Like when you just put your hand over there, it's just there's a speaker in there. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Question and I like the magic component. I'm wondering if you also look at other fiber artists. And I'm thinking, especially at the of the fiber movements of the 60s and 70s and how they looked at the properties of plant-based fibers to find new possibilities for their artworks. And I from what you showed us, I also felt that that's a big part of your work to listen to the material in that way. Yeah, I I love Ani Albers' writings on material and listening to material. I think she's like totally brilliant. And then I actually started working in textiles, working for Sheila Hicks briefly and, yeah, she was I don't think I would be doing this work if it wasn't for Sheila because she introduced me to her friends in Japan who work with textiles and I ended up working for them briefly as an assistant. And there's a relationship to materials in Japan that's like highly sacred. So, you know, I guess what we think of the divine is in material in Japan, so you're really here to listen. The spirits could be in a vase or a chair. So everything is kind of alive with meaning and presence. And I think that, like, really shaped the relationship I have to materials. Any other questions? Oh, I see one more. I'm wondering if any of this would lend itself to being just available and people passing through would touch the material and make their music somehow in a room and perhaps even more than one person, more than one textile, produce a kind of harmony. I think in the brief that I give to composers, often I ask them to make sure that all of the sounds that they give me work together in a way that they can't control. So not every composer is on board with that because it really requires relinquishing control completely of the composition because the person is really going to do what they will with the sounds that are on the textile. That's like a whole different way, I think, of composing music. And at the same time, I think it's really freeing for them because less pressure to get the notes like perfectly in sync. And so, yeah, there's a way in which I'm excited about the fact that people will do with it what they want to. Like, that's interesting to me as well. This might sound kind of stupid, but can you can you integrate speech into it?  I've heard sounds before and music and very kind of abstract, but can you get very direct in terms of speech? So the way that it works is we with the engineer that I work with, we upload a track. So if you have a track, you can kind of play whatever track you want. So it could be someone just speaking regularly that comes out of the given area of the body or the given zone. And then sometimes it can be like a time base. So you touch something, you stop and the track pauses and then it picks up again. So it can be kind of the beginning of the phrase and then it finishes the phrase when you touch it again. But yeah, we're working also with how to, I don't know, like find ways in which textiles can actually make their own sounds as well. I think there's also a way in which like considering nonverbal forms of language to as as language. So that's something that we're working on. But I like I love choral choral songs. I'm such a fan. So the next chapter for you is that MIT in the Media Lab and you're going to continue the project that you started here, the Smithsonian with the core memory. OK, yeah.  And and yeah, we're going to be working with some of his students. They work with like creative coding, so coding as a form of making to kind of think like look at how we can come up with a new textile. And the partner on the project, actually, which really made me think of Dorothy's work is advanced functional fabrics of America, who are the it's the lab that develops a lot of the innovative textiles for the Pentagon and like the Army in general. So a lot of like camouflaging textiles that can change color. So yeah, they're they're going to be part of this like high performance textiles. Yes, definitely. I'm super industrial. Like they make pieces that are made for, you know, industry afterwards. Well, I wish you luck and thank you for being here in this conversation. I really appreciate your your thoughts and insights on these, which I think for for many people is almost impenetrable. Like, how does this work with the technology? But this is very helpful, really great introduction. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and if anyone wants to test, yeah, yeah, feel free.


That's what they be saying, that's what the young people be saying Look at it, look at it, look at it laid to the side Okay, he did it That's all you? It's all you Yeah, my mama did that Come on man, that's what her mama did That's what her mama and daddy did I'm glad they met each other Yeah, yeah, and next I'm about to introduce my player partner Not just my player partner, but my blood, my cousin man Yo, he created one of the dopest dancers in the world Like I said, even Michael Jackson did it, Beyoncé did it The soldier boy that cranked that Started that whole wave, that movement Went viral, but what was viral was viral and whatnot The shorted L.O. dance, you know, V.I.C. The Get Silly Yes, sir Yo, what's the other dances? All of them Any dance that got cranked in front of it ain't nothing but a remix of Crank They Ain't And Crank That Soldier Boy So pretty much all the Crank That dances Shoot Out, Snapping Roll Bird Walk Eat 40, break your ankles, the list go on man Yo, check this out, I didn't even know you could do this But he found out that you can He owns the soldier boy Crank That Dance You own it You can go look it up Secretary of the state patting the dance First person in the world to do it In the world, the patting a dance Dance that big, you gotta do it That need to be again, it's real talk 100% We gotta make that happen If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been even Superman inside the soldier boy video Yeah, he told me about it I ain't, I'm old, so I ain't know about this young shit what's going on And he put me on, y'all give it up for Lil Playboy What's up y'all, what's up, what's up Thanks for having me back, thanks for having me back Thanks for having me back, Jack Man, dawg, it's all about you, bruh You know, this ain't even nepotism If anybody deserve it, you deserve it, you a legend bruh Thank you, real facts Hey, we got my homeboy I done known this guy, I wanna say it since it was like 2003 or 2004 Man, he came to Uptown Comedy Club I was performing one night and everything And I did this song that I used to hear my set off with Called No Safe Sex Tonight And he came up to me and You know what I'm saying, he told me that his love to song Gave me his real number Became my homeboy, man, he helps From Mount Vernon, New York, man He is a legend When stars, when stars for real When celebrities, when stars for real You had to grind to get on Man You know what I'm saying, he got hit after hit after hit after hit And he's my brother and he's helping me To be the best man that I can be He touching him, he teasing him All that may have him living happily ever after He been missing you for a long time And I know you missing him Y'all give it up for my player partner, my homeboy Kayce! What up, y'all? Let's go! You introduced me on tour Man, y'all Jack introduced me on tour from now on That was cool, man Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did it I've been working on my whole You know what I'm saying, introduction thing I've been taking from My man Carlos Miller He's one of the best out there I've been doing it in a long time Then you got Sway, Nick Cannon Boss Wildin' Out These people know how to introduce The Steve Harvey But you say the best ever I forgot your name The dude with the Perm wig, ladies and gentlemen The godfather of soul The hardest working man in the show business Bobby Bird I forgot the dude name You know who I'm talking about though And he got my phone And he took him on No matter where he was, that dude introduced him Even after they be like Hey, James Brown, his man come out I know exactly What was the name? Damn, man His family mad at us right now Yeah, we really trippin We're gonna have to get a Google fact in Somebody bring that back before the show go off And let us know what that is and stuff James Brown, yeah, I forgot Like y'all said, Spaket Johnson Spaket Johnson As soon as you hear it, you be like Oh, that's it, Spaket Johnson, right? Hey, what's going on? This your boy Jack Driller, man I'm trying to get in shape So first off, what do I have to do? I have to change my diet, I have to change my mind And I have to just change My appetite So how do I do that?  You saw what I did there? Hit the factormeals.com slash Thriller50 Use my code Thriller50 to get 50% off That's code Thriller50 at factormeals.com slash Thriller50 to get 50% off Yes, yeah, yeah, man Thanks for coming to the show, man Aw, man, you know I'm coming to see you, man Bruh, let me tell you something I was just moving back to Atlanta, coming home and what not, and my birthday was coming up Case was performing No, it was just moonlighting Had a party going on already On my birthday, May 7th Back in 2021 That was his birthday They said it again? That was his birthday Get out of here! Yeah, we was in there Yeah, that was his birthday Work! Get out of here!  October 4th, two weeks Two weeks? Yeah, from yesterday Okay, so what you planning on doing, bruh?  Yeah, I'm gonna just stand there I can dig it, I can dig it Where your niggas gone?  Man, I went to a lot in these 52 years I'm happy to be here They said I was gonna be dead when I was 18 Out of here, man You were stuck in like that, bruh Man, hold on, I remember seeing something on Oh, here we go Now it's coming back to me I'm talking about it just hit me like a boat of lightning right now You was a thug coming up No, I was just in the street I wouldn't say I was a thug, but I mean, we were doing, I mean, we were niggas doing the street What do niggas do on the street, man? Sell drugs Sell a little drugs No, we sold a lot of drugs Because we gotta make it sound good Nah, it ain't, it's terrible However How ever And you got kicked out and everything, right? No, I left You left the house Like at a real young age too, like 15 Yeah, but that was more so because my parents were your witnesses and they was like I couldn't live in their house and pursue a career in music And besides that my pops was as long as I could remember was like when you turn 18, you getting out He said that, that's back when they did that No, no, no, he said it It was a thing I think he might have had it on a timer because I remember that forever That and he'd be like Yeah, you do XYZ I'll kill you and make another one look just like you That was his joy So real though I got kicked out at 17, man And you can't go back home, it's not an option I could have went back I could have went back He said he left You left on your own Yeah, I left on my own and the reason I didn't go back was because I was starving, it was cold, it was New York But And it was right around the corner But I'm like, I want to do music And my mother, you know moms She's like, yeah, you can just come and listen to it But eventually That's not pride, I know what I want to do and I can't do it there, and I respect that So I got to take whatever consequences come with that And what kind of consequences come with that in New York and Mount Vernon Being homeless in the wintertime That's what I was just thinking And that's a different kind of goal What they call it, brick Yeah, it was brick But I mean if you want you got to suffer something to get something Pay it off You can't skip over that So you actually were sleeping outside in the winter No, no, no, what I would do I had a whole thing For one, I would hang out at the gambler spot All my friends would be there, they didn't know I was homeless And so I would run into one of my friends and be like, yo let me get a single Then a couple hours later another one of them So now I got two dollars Well, four chicken wings from the Chinese restaurant was $1.85 What?  Somebody define that What does that mean? It's not just young people that say that But it means something different depending on who says it You know what I'm saying?   Request That's the waiting room Yeah, wait at the ball So One day out of nowhere this dude I get alert in my comments I'm like Who is this nigga on this head nag So something So I click his profile Look, he had been DM me less work for two years Aw man I'm like, nigga, should I post this With Petty and me wanting to post that That's what this is about Yup, cause you didn't respond You didn't like it Break that all the way down You're a grown ass man man He didn't acknowledge you Social media has created so many Mental illnesses It's so sickening man Advanced nigga don't be sickening Man, I'm telling you that's top of the list Yeah So The internet is really really crazy man Like did you used to lash out on people When they did that at first Yeah you first started Cause it's like you cannot be that disrespectful bro Like you cannot sit there and tell me That comfortable being that disrespectful to me You don't even fucking know me What Cause if I was standing right in front of you Would they have gone down like that Absolutely not, you're not even going to approach me So what are we doing here Y'all ever met y'all haters before on the internet Not on the internet But there was this one girl in Oakland And it was like a video show And they had a live audience So this one girl keep just yelling out Stupid shit She was like So then she was like So my bodyguard he got out Whole time I just wanted to get his attention I love him so much but that's the weirdest shit I've ever seen So you take any attention Any attention I mean there ain't no difference When I throw in they draws or they brawl on stage That's very different Very different man I'm just saying That's not that I just wanted to see you You're disrespecting yourself doing that But you're disrespecting me doing the other thing No, you're not disrespecting yourself about throwing your draws in your brawl No, to him But that's why we here This is a grown man Yeah These draws and brawls ain't going to pick themselves They don't have to be politically correct With the ladies man They're the ones throwing the draw They're the ones throwing it Now it is bad when You see some real big ones That's my Annalene I know she in here I don't mind them throwing their draws I just don't want them to touch me As long as they know how to throw correctly As long as they land Draws got to monitor their own Once they get in there You don't know where it's coming down It's like ejections Where it might land When you became a singer Because that's always been a fantasy of mine And yeah When you were fantasizing About becoming a singer Was that something that you was like Yo, I need these women Grabbing at my dick Throwing their draws and their brawls at me Was that inside of your fantasy Actually that wasn't part of it Because I was more focused on doing What I needed to do because if you do it right That's going to happen So you knew that was going to happen Say it again It never crossed my mind You better not be pentering up in this moment I promise you Then after the first time it happened You being an R&B singer I'm a rock star I'm telling you You know Stop pretending for these people You know 100% You know He's that nigga That's Pussy Pumper number one Running the 90s Running the 90s man Come on baby You deserve it You deserve it bro Do you remember the first time that you ever Got this type of Instant gratification Do you remember where you were Where you were performing Hearing the song or you mean performing From the ladies Performing live It was my album release party I think that was the first show that I did But It was a little different because I was still new to performing And my mama was there My girl was there Her mama was there It was all new to me I'm still finding myself But I do remember that night So how did you deal With all of these important women In your life And this new type How you play that off Carefully Very carefully What do young people call it today They call it toxic Was you in one of them relationships Where your girl didn't understand That She was that nigga Cause she was that chick I seen that I seen you talk about that before Can I name drop her It's up to you I seen you talk about that with Mary before She was there And her mama was there And you said her cousin was your height man He was my height That's my dog Go ahead You see playboy over there Get in there I'm working them real I'm just gonna say When you got somebody with that statue You gotta just It's easy then No it's not Keep in mind I'm new I'm still building a fan base So you can't play that other side too hard Because then the fans You're not giving them what they need Hold on So you got a name brand woman Name brand woman I hate you That's for sure That's big for sure Let's put some respect on that relationship I like that Name brand woman Women ain't gonna stop liking you But when they find out you got a name brand Brand woman because they want to feel like They're on her level So they're gonna do everything they can To try to get your attention Whether you say you are not Now if you got a regular degla chick You know then I can see them Being extremely Unless she could fight It takes like two shows If she could fight That's right because you keep in mind This just escaped me You're from New York They were scrapping back then That was almost warrior's time Yeah With bottles and everything And razor blades in their mouth The hawks and lords The women were harder than the dudes Especially behind them Yeah How did you deal with that Did your girl ever have to fight She tried to But I mean I'm here so I guess I got through it You got through it I was seeing something On a special one time And it was talking about you In that particular situation Where you was trying to get some support And put her in your video But because you were always on different labels Why couldn't they honor that I didn't understand why Because they don't care about that And they're not supposed to Because that's their artist Yeah, that's their artist And so they're protective over Because they own the name and likeness to music So they're protective over what You're going to allow people to Because that's like them endorsing What he got going on It's not necessarily conflicted But they're brand conscious So it doesn't have to be a conflicted But they're going to protect Their investment They're going to do the same thing And that's just how that goes But yeah, they told us she couldn't do it Actually, I'm trying to think that the dude Say forbid, which is Probably was the worst thing to say I think forbid was the word that they used Somebody said forbid Yes, it sound like some Adam and Eve type Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah And like, so how did you Move around there and even It become a thing to where It wasn't supposed to be So is this at a time when somebody snitched Somebody snitched Somebody called Wendy Williams And me and my brother Now mind you, I'm fresh off the streets This is all new to me But it's even more new to him So we in a car, he's sitting there And you know, Wendy Williams show was four hours So he's looking at me, he's like, hey yo He was high as hell I'm like He's like, hey yo I realized the whole four hours Of the radio been about you That's fucking crazy big I'm like, I didn't think about that I'm gonna deal with this shit Cause I gotta go get in a little while So somebody snitched That's how I got public Now would you say that helped The cashier of your business Or would you say that it kinda You know, hurt you because You know, you come from an era when R&B singers, they're They're mysterious You don't know I think At the time I don't think it affected me at all Actually It actually Well, I can say that it helped If for nothing else because She wrote Touch Me Tee She wrote that Basically she wrote it I'm gonna say that she wrote it As far as I'm concerned She wrote three other songs on my first album Wow It ain't got in the video It got yelled at by the people in charge So I would say it helped me I didn't know Mary wrote like I didn't know she wrote Wow And now that you know I can listen to it in my head That sounds like Just like when he just played I got you, she wrote that too Wow Mortar Love It's one more song Whatever the 4-4-0 She wrote that too As far as I'm concerned Here's what I saw when I was on the road They don't care She ain't here Especially back in those days Right now Yeah That ain't real stuff I'm pandering What was that Cause it was Cell phones back in the day The incident Now you're making a point It was a lot easier to hide those relationships It had to be leaked To Wendy Williams for the world She was social media Let me tell you a thing about Wendy To this day I'm not sure why Remember she used to blow everybody up Tell all your business She never did that to me What she would do is Then people would fax her stuff Like I saw Kasey She had to tell them what a fax is Yeah Everybody else she would blow them up She would call my cell phone and be like Hey listen I'm getting these faxes You need to move different And then to make it I guess even better I'm like she never flipped on me She must like me Not like that Would you hit it back then Control the narrative I wrote a dance We ain't talking about today Wendy We talking about back in the day Wendy Yeah nah She a friend Cause that's your friend I'm your friend That's it He was awesome I'm a friend You said you used to bring your friends Into the hotel room with you too And her cousin You said you used to bring some of your friends Into the hotel room with you After the show But remember you said your friends are just your friends What's the levels to this Different friends You got friends you go to the club with You got some serious shit with you You got some friends that show up the court for you But Wendy wasn't one of them friends You were bringing to the hotel room is what I'm saying Cause that's a different type of friend The media friend Yeah yeah You got to keep them on your side Yeah but she never did it She would always call me and be like hey listen She's like if you don't believe me I'll fax them to you I'm like y'all some snitches Like for real I mean to the point where people called Wendy Williams was like I saw a case Last night at the shock bar He was with some girl blah blah It was my mom's Yeah it was my mom's But people just talk People just talk so That was a tip line back in the day And she has stacks Of faxes There's a rhyme in there somewhere But she has stacks of faxes And she'd be like this this I'm telling you what I'm getting I'm not gonna put it out there you just need to move different And I was gonna say and I think Then fast forward maybe A year and a half later Her husband I mean at the time He wanted to propose to her Wendy Williams husband When he walks up to me we talking I'm like he and him was in the third grade together And never realized it Get out of here how did you find out Because somebody that was there Went to our school and she was like Y'all don't know each other and pulled out the class picture I'm like damn that is No you was in the same class too Same class we was in Miss Murray's class Right And so I sang Why he proposed to us so I was like oh she ain't never gonna tell I mean that And that's how you do that But she wasn't telling before that So I had to sing I'm like where the mic So people it is boundaries in this So do you think she was trying to Put Mary out When she told that business She didn't tell it what happened was Somebody okay My producer that I was working with In the label I was on He was messing with some chick And she was his girl But he had a real girl She found out so she went to blast him But nobody Really knew him at the time so she was like I'm gonna have to up this So she told on me But Wendy kept against it she was like There's an army princess and an army newcomer And this and this and that so everybody Trying to figure out who it is And then somebody I'm not gonna say the name You know okay we friends now called It was like it's her and him And the cat was out the back But before that So a caller called on the station Exposed and said who it was But the thing about it and this is what you said about cell phones Before that me and her had left a party And Now mind you we keeping it low Well that night the alcohol was like Hold her hand while you walk out the club So we walked out the club Like this hand hand and the whole club was like Oh so if it was falling down it would have been over Yeah It would have been over Fact or fiction Did you and Casey fight over Mary That's very much fiction That's very much fiction That's fake Somebody told me that recently Yo I heard that's not How did that even start Because people say all tables But you ain't had one hand People say anything That makes sense No we never not one day It might have been some tension between us at some point Man that's this R&B tension I was gonna say was it really about her or was that this R&B though 5th 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th But no no And then once we sat down and we talked It was good and we've been tight as hell ever since I suppose it was the other day on his birthday No That's what's up man And I think that just in general Like people getting to these big beefs And escalates Escalates a lot of times just a conversation Now sometimes it's not Depending on what the situation But most situations that We as black people Killing each other It should be talked out Like what my man Wishbone said Put down your ego Put down the guns Talk it out 100% You know I'm a really big R&B fan I got a lot of R&B Singer friends But one thing that I noticed While you know being the R&B singer A lot of y'all don't like each other What's up with all that R&B For real cause We have a game called that On Wild'n Out Cause of that Where we go back in verses You know what I'm saying If we gonna base it off of verses I'm basing this up See I get along with everybody I never really had beef with nobody But you seen it though right Yeah I seen it And I've heard stories like You know somebody not wanting somebody If they were the headliner on show Yeah that's pillow fight That ain't beat that's a pillow fight Y'all arguing over dumb shit But that ain't me I love everybody So when you headliner on the show I hate headlining Cause them motherfuckers be tired by the time The headliner get up to it I did a festival one time And they wanted me to headline It was like 8 o'clock I'm like yo that crowd was dead And then somebody was like They been here since 12 noon Of course they, yeah I don't like headlining I'm cool on that Headline is like sex you know The four play is where it's at Cause that's when it's real good No No I love you No No Sex is my nigga Are you going for the long haul?  Yeah I don't care about headlining I mean people have beefs but that's not real beef That's just ego at the time You seen the five heart beef 100% That stuff been going on since the beginning of the time I mean I've heard so many stories About that from the old heads I heard stories you wouldn't believe I would believe you I bet you would Yeah cause you know I know I've watched the making Of the five heart beats And even though it was a Fixed They had each other Like What's my man name Michael Knight They played Eddie King Yes and JT which was played by Leon They hated each other They was trying to outdo each other for real To the point where Robert Townsend Was losing money on the set Cause they kept on getting each other's shots He should have used it And that would have fueled the storyline Which he probably did From what I've used it But yeah I mean That's not real beef Were you ever in a group before? Before I got a record deal with us What was the name of the group? The name of the group was Future We performed at a talent show And it was a three man group You want to shout to get your dogs out?  Man it's financial literacy time man Money talks with Herman Doshay Jr Hello everybody Haitian CEO We are live back in the city Back at New Jack Thrillers City It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood So this is a tip I want to give you for today Sometimes Your credit usage is killing you From getting more funding on the personal side Or the business side Cause the usage is just too high Did you know you can get a personal loan To pay down the credit card debt? Herman why is that even worth it? Because credit card Interest is killing you 20, 25, even 30% Interest on a usage On your credit card So some of the best ways to do this Is to get a personal loan To pay down the credit usage And the credit card debt Here's some benefits that happen You're saving a fortune Because the interest rate on a personal loan Is cheaper than the credit card And when you pay down the usage Your credit scores go up I have an amazing institution That actually can help with that But it's not for everybody And you have a relationship with Truist Bank And you have at least two Primary credit cards On your credit report Let us help you get at least a $50,000 Loan on the personal side To help you pay down the debt Just text the number 50 to 1844 939 3115 It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood I'll talk to you soon When you actually got on Did Todd or Jeff reach out to you and say Hey! Well no, I didn't speak to you We had broken up long before that We tried to do what we did Actually all we really did was Like some talent shows and we rehearsed a lot It wasn't Never made it to the studio We may have, me and Todd did Because Todd was a dope songwriter But it never got to where it needed to go And there was a couple of situations like that And that's why I always say that things go the way they're supposed to go And at the time you're like Damn, it's not working But what they say, man plans And God laughs, it's going to happen The way it's supposed to happen You might not understand it, sometimes you might not like it But it's going to happen Because I don't know if you ever The group a lot of day Those are my people I knew Lil' Tone, T.O. Cross, shout out That's my brother since he was like 14 So we were signed To the same management company Because I was in another group Me and my man Brian, shout out Bezo What's the name of the group? Black Yeah, see I'm black, y'all And I'm black, y'all And I'm black, y'all Eyes colored And so we went to meetings They were like, I'm definitely going to sign you So it wasn't happening One of the members a lot of day The group, he got kicked out And what they wanted to do was put Myself and Brian as a part of our day So it'd be no more black And Something told me, nah, I don't do that And Brian who to this day One of my closest friends, he was like, yo, dawg They got a record deal already And I'm broke as hell Would you feel any type of way If I joined the group even though you don't want to I'm like, nah, dawg, do your thing I feel you So they had a record deal with everything I was like, damn, okay, just me I ain't never getting no group no more Wow Wow Let's talk writing and Publishing Talk to me about When you were signing your deal Did you understand the concept of that? Yeah, I did You did? Hell yeah It's a very simple concept The hardest part about the whole Is the different types of royalties Publishing is a very simple concept Just the percentage that you own Get my goddamn money That's very simple You already knew about that beforehand Yeah, it was something I remember and I never forgot this Maybe it was like 7 or 8 and my dad was like Well, if you ever do Do music, make sure you write Because that's where the money is And I never forgot that That's simple It's the different types of royalties The mechanicals On the publishing it's the publisher side The producer side But I wouldn't worry about that Just my side, let's go That's very simple Got you Got to know your scripts Also, you already know On your first album When you said you didn't have too much Creative control over it Do your own writing Or they was bringing writers in On that first album I wrote Maybe 6 songs I wrote Rain, What's Wrong Sofray, Crazy I wrote a bunch of the songs But I wasn't able to Formulate the direction of the album Because those are songs I had already been working on Hold on, formulate the direction Yeah, where the album is headed It's a bunch of songs But you got to make it all make sense And make it all go in the same direction And so for me, I had songs That I've been writing and working on for years And that's why people say People had the sophomore jinx Because you had your whole life to write your first album Now you got 6 months to write the second one And impress these people Exactly, and that's the pressure I never knew that But think about it, it makes sense If you've been wanting to be a singer all your life Well, you've been working towards this moment When that blew up And now they're like, hi, you did it We need a new album in 6 months It ain't the same That's not the same You're not writing with that same hunger No, you might be writing with the same hunger But you didn't have no pressure when you were writing There was no pressure You don't know how long you had You were just going through it But now the pressure is like we needed it in 6 months That's pressure Alright, so let's transfer that Can I ask this one question A lot of people go through this now In this day and time Do you feel like that pressure Turned the hunger into desperation? For me? Maybe not so much for you But knowing where you come from In the industry and where things are now Where we feel like we have these industry plants Or people just came out of nowhere With these crazy concepts And everybody's got a latch onto it now Do you feel like that's turned into a desperation For that clout, for that fame Or is it or that's really who they just were I believe my personal belief Is that the whole Art of making music And songwriting and stuff Has been dumbed down to the point of Being a legal hustle And Where I'm from as far as Musically it's like it's not a hustle Of any kind, it's not a legal hustle It's you, it should be you You know what I'm saying I think that once the internet came There's a lot of people that's like I don't want to go to school, I'm broke I don't want to sell drugs, fuck it, I'm gonna make music And there was nobody to stop them And that's why people be like There's no good music, there's great music out The problem is it used to be easy to find Now you gotta go look for it And the internet made it Like that to where people are like It's like legal drug money Well just by definition That makes it not art You're not putting any love into it You're not putting your soul into it You just trying to make some money And I learned this in the very beginning Somebody very successful told me Listen, don't worry about the money Focus on doing good shit And the money gonna come The money gonna come If you do what you propose to do the right way It's gonna come It's a logical progression So when you say that right there Or when you were writing your second album When you were writing your second album Where you trying to chase the songs That did well And made them rain-esque Nah, that's the worst mistake you can make And I learned that from an OG Before I got a record deal And it was like Listen, when you make a record And it's dope and it's a hit You did that, leave it alone Don't make no part two There's no such thing When people be like Part two of this and this and that What usually happens Is you've already put a certain stigma onto it That now you're chasing It's not organic Art should be organic It should be a feeling And yeah Nah, I never was into that And Quincy Jones was like Listen, a lot of songs That people do You do an artist trying to put the album together But the artist don't want to kill their babies So you gotta talk them in that Listen, this gotta go You have to let it go You can't get too attached to it And I learned that I had this one song I love that shit But everybody Cause I don't be around So I had all my people come My family, they was like It's cool Just the greatest shit ever What the fuck are you talking about By the tenth person I'm like Just not the greatest shit ever By the tenth person I'm tired I'm like, this shit not great I mean it's cool Fuck y'all I listened to it in my car for like three months But it can't come out It can't come out I still think that song dope though To this day Would it go right now Cause music go whenever What you said 1998 It was supposed to be on Personal conversation Got you Now with that same pressure That six months time This 2023 And I feel like It's so much music that's being Millions of songs Being put out every two hours Every two hours Shit Do you think that you can duplicate Some quality Albums Right now If you go through your album music You'll see they can't neither How do you feel about this whole sample error I know samples have always been a thing But it's like real big It's bad Somebody from Def Jam tell me That's what they were looking for Was artists they could merge Vibe with the R&B Like they were literally looking for people To do that That's what they want to put their money behind When it comes to that I feel like the labels They've been flailing for the longest Am I right That's flailing That's flailing How do some people call you about your songs That were hits that they want to sample If I like the song They gotta pay me You got damn right You had the Touch Me Tease Me Sampled by Christian They all got sample 50s In the Trace Song I've just seen a lot of them Wife and Lucy sample missing Casanova sample Faded Pictures Actually there's been a few people Sampled Touch Me Tease Me So it's a blessing Was it Touch Me Tease Originally a sample Actually they credit that as the first Gangster Rap Song It's PSK Schooly D Schooly D Was you one of the first people to Actually work with a rapper No How many times had it been done by the time Your album came out A whole lot Think about how many We can go back a few LL Cool J Hold on, that one went around the same time?  Yeah, but we always Do shows together And you said Genuine too, right? Yeah, G came out We all came out around the same time Was Next Out then too?  When Joe came Joe was 91 93, 94 Yeah, 93, 94 Got you Why was I that young listening to that shit? I'm thinking about how old I was Can you tell her why? Can you tell her why? Please tell her why Tell her why she was listening to that This was great music It was great music, but some of it That's what I'm saying You say in 96, Touch Me Teased Me Touch Me Teased Me Too Littin' I had this conversation with somebody You want to be Touching Teased? I was born in the 70s And so I pointed this And I said it to my mom, I was like Many rippers didn't have this song The chorus is You can see inside me When you come inside me Come inside my love We knew this song We weren't even paying attention It went over our heads Not for long But it didn't go over your head No, it didn't go over my head I'm talking about my arm Why are you so fast?  Y'all kick us out to listen to Rich Pryor Man, what? They used to get kicked out And my cousin would be like Bye They probably didn't think you understood Because as an adult Right now, watching Tom and Jerry And some cartoons I get a totally different meaning I did not peep that The difference is the kids now understand Because of the internet I got a question for you You told us that you let your family Listen to what you thought was The greatest album in your family How they structured you As the whole witnesses Did you always know you were going to be a singer? How close were we to not having a case Dealing with your family structure? Never! I got pictures in my phone when I was 2, 3 years old My grandmother used to make us do concerts For company What's crazy is I did a Side by side There's a picture of me at 2 years old With a microphone like this And there's a picture from last month With me on stage with a microphone like this I didn't make it Your family didn't influence you at all You always knew that's what your goal was They said I couldn't do it That's a good way to get me to do it Harder Where does that transition at What do you say regardless of what these people say Because you listened to them dealing with the greatest song I know your family is influential to you Your greatest song that you felt That song didn't come out Was it because of them Or you just decided against it Remember you said This song is a hit No, no, no, that was in 1999 Second album That's different No, no, no, not that family Not mom and daddy When I say family it's like brothers Like cousins and stuff like that That was a young people party there By that time I had left home Touch Me, Teach Me came out It was 98 That conversation Given that Knowing that they didn't support that They didn't want that for you What was that conversation like When your mom was there to first show How did you get them to believe That this is what I'm going to be regardless My thing was that I didn't want them I didn't want to get them to believe I wanted to get This is just part of how I'm made up That was going to see how I was going to do it so good I'll show you That's how I was The one thing I do remember From that album release party We talked about this recently Is that They gave me a gold plaque At the party, Touch Me, Teach Me had one gold And my mom was like I'm so happy, I'm so proud of you And I just bust out crying in the middle of the party Word?   Yeah I'm always happy Even when I'm sad And I'm always right sometimes Always right sometimes Well you getting married That's your gonna work trust me Yeah it's gonna work but you can't use it a lot You can't use it a lot I'm always right sometimes baby I got a question for you Missing you was on A professor too Yeah It's real simple Damn I know you're expecting the story But this is gonna be way simpler than you think Here's the thing, when it goes on a soundtrack Okay let's say it takes a hundred thousand dollars Just hypothetically To promote a single Well if you put it on a soundtrack The movie company pays half of that It don't come out your budget And that's why them songs Soundtracks for rush hour Naughty professor Them songs wasn't in the movie But the reason they was on there Because I don't have to spend this Two hundred thousand The movie company gonna spend it and they got it Because of the licensing No because it's their movie And so they have to They're contractually obligated to pay half of it I'll take that all day That was a good question Because if not they're gonna bill it back to you One hundred percent And me back half Got you Okay And then you get the marketing and the promotion And then the only caveat is We had the clips from the movie In the video I was just getting ready to say The only reason why a lot of people knew Because you said it wasn't in the movie But I knew because those clips So it's connected But it's a money thing What's the part of the game that you could do without bro?  How much time you got?  That's something that you have to deal with When it comes to the higher ups The business part of it gets in the way of the art And that really began Once the corporations started buying up The labels Because if you go back to like Motown Which is my favorite label of all time If you do the history The Supremes couldn't get a hit for shit Nope That's right And the Temptations couldn't get a hit They even changed their name one time There was the Elgins I'm already knowing Now what happened was because Barry Gordy Didn't have to answer to nobody If he believed in you I know I put out 12 records and they ain't working But I believe in them So I'm going to keep doing it Until it works You can't do that once the corporations take over Because I might believe in you But all they care about is the bottom line I'm going to lose my job I can't lose my job, I got kids So now nobody is thinking about the art Everybody is in survival mode Except the artist, the artist is making the art that they feel The people in charge in charge Are worried about the bottom line Absolutely This is my opinion, you can't make good art Based off of a bottom line You can't Because it takes the compassion And all of that really is out of it Everything away from it It's not organic anymore She came out She made this song We need a song like that Because them people I really believe in him But it's almost Christmas I got kids I just bought a new house The art is going to get sacrificed And that started right when I got signed Ironically I got signed in 1995 And I also sold Half of Def Jam to Polygram And that was the beginning of it The corporations I walked into a meeting I had the number one song in the country On R&B number 300 pop charts I walked into a meeting with the corporation people They didn't know who the fuck I was Didn't care They didn't care What's the bottom line And if y'all don't hit the number you supposed to hit All y'all fired So that's trickle down I'm like y'all I really believe in this song Man fuck you better make a song that sound like that So I'll lose my job and that's how it goes And how public enemies say Who stole the soul That's how the soul gets stolen Because art is art That's what got you there in the first place Yeah exactly It had nothing to do with money Because when it came to music Not only wood I was doing it for free But by the way in this game I'm going to do it for free If all y'all are doing it too Yeah now it's a job Now it's money That's the death of it Damn Do you remember what your first big purchase was Where you got that check check Oh the check check or the check Let's go for it This is my first check ever In the music business I have wrote a song On Usha's first album Actually it's the first song Usha's first album Baby you know that I Can make it right That's the first song on his first album On the first album yes yes When he got you So I co-wrote me and LaDe Oh my god that's so crazy So what happened was I had a newborn baby And we was on welfare So I was like yo I'm going to sell my part of the publishing And they gave me $4000 Like I'm rich as hell I went and bought a hockey jersey A bullshit gold chain Went to the strip club Got my brother's windows Busted out his car It's like the hangover No it was awesome It was awesome But that was my first check in the music business And then I wrote a song for Christopher Williams For his album What a big bro Which one?  He was like it's called XM radio I'm like niggas What is it?   Danny D'Kane She was a Danny Kane?  Rich was my dude He was doing all of himself Rich was dope Rich was dope Rich Harrison he did A. Marie's whole first album He did Crazy He did so many songs He did so many songs All of them go-go-sounding songs that was coming out He was doing them Chucky was doing a bunch of that stuff too God I miss Chucky too That's my dog Chucky is my dog Can I ask this real quick Back to what we were talking about This is for anybody Was it like $800-$900 a month Or they talking about yearly They only getting $800-$900 For their publishing Yeah that is It's better than nothing It's not raping you records See that's what she wanted you to think That's why she posted that But if you break it down Because most people ain't gonna do that That's why they do stuff like that Look at the credits for all of their songs I guarantee you there's 10-12 Writers on it And you might have just been one And none of them Let's be real What you think you was gonna get Now if this is one 12 Saying that I can respect it Not Danny, you can't They wasn't even around long enough for that That's real okay Showstopper that was it Did you just make that up?   What's paperwork?