October 15, 2025 • 11 mins
BTGM Briefs: Roland Martin is host and managing editor of Roland Martin Unfiltered and founder of the Black Star Network.
Follow Will Lucas on Instagram: @willlucas
Follow Black Tech Green Money: @blacktechgreenmoney, @btgmpodcast
Learn more at AfroTech.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I've seen you in person, and I love this.
You told this story last time. I saw you at
the University of Toleto doing the talk last year, and
you talked about the bag that you carry with you
everywhere you go. And then that bag is your age
six zoom recorder or whatever zoom recorder. You have your
cameras and your et cetera. And there are so many
people who still today believe that they need all this
(00:24):
equipment to put out content. Can you talk about the
first of thinking and then the actual equipment you need.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, again, the problem for so many people is the
problem for so many people is that they don't understand
the infrastructure. We're going to do something. Okay, we're gonna
do something right here, So just give me one second,
because I need to just give me one second. All right, perfect,
(00:53):
all right. So you just said, you just asked the
question about in terms of, okay, how we do this thing,
how it's done, and a lot of people don't understand.
So here's a perfect example. Yesterday. Yesterday I was doing
a show. I was in Dallas and it was a
(01:14):
golf tournament. That a golf tournament that Nancy liverin Klein has,
and so I was invited to play in it. But
here's the whole deal. I'm doing it, but I'm also
on the road. I'm also you know, traveling, So I'm like, okay,
the golf. Because we had a storm. Normally I would
have done the show for my hotel room. A storm
(01:35):
hit Dallas, so the golf tournament didn't start at nine,
it started at eleven. I was damn So what ended
up happening was I had to do the show from
the course because I couldn't get because we finished at
four fifteen. So as a result by having what you
just described, then this is what that looked like. This
(01:58):
is the literal setup right here where you see right there,
the four lights, the return monitor, you see, the live
you you see you see right there, and again golf,
the golf courses, my backdrop you're seeing. That's the whole
setup right there. All of that stuff is in literally
(02:20):
a twenty two inch carry on and so, and because
again what you have to understand is you have to think.
You have to think efficient, you have to think, Okay,
it's just me, and so how can I distill this
thing down? How can I be as small as possible?
(02:42):
How can I be able to do this? And so
you'll see right here I was in Wisconsin. This is
the look in a hotel room. I carry four LED lights.
A lot of times when you're traveling, the walls are bare.
Luckily got you got color in this room. Normally sometime
hotel rooms got white walls. Well, guess what I bounced.
(03:04):
I bounced that the I bounced the light off of
the wall. Now, all of a sudden, I've given the
show color. And so that's four twenty five LED lights.
They fit in an Amazon eight inch Neil prem bag.
Boom right there, they fit right in. And so again
it's it's when you're when you when you're thinking. I
was up bout three weeks ago, I had a keynote
(03:25):
speech in Milwaukee. Uh, and the problem was the noon speech.
I couldn't fly out to get back to the studio
in time. So and I did this last year, so
this wasn't the first time. And I said, Okay, drive
me to Chicago. I'm gonna catch a nine pm flight
back to d C. I'll do my show from Chicago
(03:46):
or Hair Airport. Now somebody's like, hell, yep, you're gonna
do the show from the airport. So this happened. So
I find you a spot in the airport. Same setup.
So I got portable power, I got my four lights,
I got my camera, I got my live youew my
return minder. This it does in the corner. I got
(04:08):
my omni, I got my omni charge. You see a
teleprompter there, you see the live view. You see my
portable power. Because I wasn't trying to run extension cords
all over the place. So when you understand how the
technology works, then you understand how you can move. And
again you're not trying to sit here and be crazy
(04:31):
with it. And so I know somebody's sitting there going, man,
you're caring a lot. No, this is literally right here.
This is one half of the twin two inch carry
on and this is the other side of the twin
two inch carry on. Everything that I need to broadcast
is in that bag. So the so the whole thinking
for me is constantly. So let's just take audio. Well,
(04:51):
I used to have the Lively microphone, the XLR come
from the camera. Well guess what DJI comes up with
their wireless microphones. Now I'm wireless. Now I can plug
it straight in. Now'm not dealing with frequencies not not
running but a cable. Plus that microphone has like a
hundred foot rain. My cable can't do that. So how
my brain works, I'm constantly trying to think of, Okay,
(05:18):
how more efficient, how smaller can you be? And so
even as I'm sitting right here, the reason I'm able
to show you what I'm showing, I have an ATM
Mini switcher. Well I can also now this is a
little bit more equipment, and so it can't fit in
the bag, so I got to have it through my backpack.
But I have another a ten minute switcher. So a
lot of times when I'm on the road, I may
not have time. I shot some video, I can't upload
(05:41):
it to the to the to drop box and my
staff can download it. But if I have my switcher
with me, boom, just what I just did here, I
can play my video right there from the phone or
from my iPad. I can show the photo. I pull
up live tweets on the show as well, because I'm
basically I'm sitting here coordinating. So when you understand, when
(06:03):
you understand technology, and when you just step back and
now it's a question of okay, just the different pieces.
So for me, it's how can you be small, nimble efficient? Uh?
And so that's set that same portable suitcase. It goes
wherever I go. But I gave a speech in Indianapolis
on Sunday. I was at church. I said, Hey, are
y'all live streaming this? No? Are y'all recording this? Yes?
(06:26):
I got to the place I said, we looked at
your camera. You got a SDI out? You do? Okay? Cool?
I need a SDI out. I set my live streaming,
my live you box up, didn't have to put my
camera up, connect it. I then live stream my speech
from their event, and again you lives in their equipment.
I've done that numerous times. And so that so when
(06:48):
you understand, people got to realize. I went to Communications
high school, Jack Kad's High School, Magic School Communications. So
I learned behind the camera. I didn't I didn't even
want to do it in front of the camera, but
I learned, But how the camera, how all the pieces work.
And so once you do that, now you understand the technology.
Now you understand just you know sort of how these
(07:11):
things work. And so then when you begin to realize
and it's just some basic things that people don't even understand.
So even if we were testing something in our studio,
so you take, you give an example, you just take.
So this is the iPhone and we had this, we
had I think a holly Land connected because we wanted
to be able to use the phone to do for
(07:32):
the cinematic Look, well, the problem is we was like, okay, fine,
well this is the problem here with the iPhone. So
all the markings are still on here. Then we realize
with the black Magic app, you can actually remove the markings.
Now you can do something different. So I am in
a constant and this is people don't understand. And people
stop me and they say, man, I can't believe you
(07:54):
don't have somebody who's not doing that stuff. I said,
why in the hell am I? See? This is also
people don't understand business. Why am I gonna pay somebody
the daily rate, a plane ticket, a hotel room, per
diem to set my equipment up and it takes me
fifteen minutes. That's just dumb business. So if I'm traveling
(08:19):
by myself, I don't need to travel somebody with me
to set my camera up. I can do it. So
and I travel a lot, so that's that's an added expense.
So I am constantly trying to learn. I am constantly
trying to see what's the next thing, what's the next
(08:40):
what can we do next, What's how does this work?
And I'm looking at pieces of equipment. I'm looking at
lights and cameras and all you all sorts of things
you know, I love. I did a whole video. I
did a whole video on YouTube and people can actually
check it out. What do I call it? That's it
was called content creator must have And so I did
this be there because people and you know people, they've
(09:02):
hit me for John O'Brien, my buddy. John's always like Roland,
you should do a masterclass. Charge people like, No, I
want to do that, I said, because I'm not interested
in just now I got to sit here and sign
people up, and I'm like, that's boring as hell, John,
I'm not doing that. But but I did this, and
I did this whole thing because I just needed people
to understand how these things work. And so this is
(09:25):
it right here. I just sat at my kitchen table
and I just went through the DJ Neo, the DJI camera,
the DJ Neo drone and could do this because there
are a lot of people. They're trying to figure it out.
And man, I've done it. I got so much equipment
I got. I got hell I got an FPV DRAWNE
(09:47):
but I haven't even used yet. But I got all
this sort of But it's the knowledge, and I just
think it's stupid to have knowledge and have expertise and
you don't share it because of Okay, what's the whole
purpose of in hoarding it? This makes no sense, But
that's just how I work. I am every day. I'm
sitting here looking at this and testing this, and I'm like,
(10:09):
you know, all this sort of stuff like this here.
So if I was doing my show, I got a
pair of tailler prompter right here, I got the remote
control right here, and I had one for the road.
I literally could have my taileprompter loaded. And now now
I'm on the road and I'm handling my business. But
that's what that's called being though a student of your craft,
(10:31):
and that ties into the business of your craft because
that also impacts your bottom line. If I had to
pay somebody to roll with me, it might I would
probably be spending another another one hundred thousand plus dollars
a year. If I had to have somebody travel with
(10:52):
me to set my stuff up, with all the speeches
and stuff that I give, and that that's just, and
so by me being able to do it, I'm saving
my business one hundred grand minimum
So I've seen you in person, and I love this.
You told this story last time. I saw you at
the University of Toleto doing the talk last year, and
you talked about the bag that you carry with you
everywhere you go. And then that bag is your age
six zoom recorder or whatever zoom recorder. You have your
cameras and your et cetera. And there are so many
people who still today believe that they need all this
(00:24):
equipment to put out content. Can you talk about the
first of thinking and then the actual equipment you need.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, again, the problem for so many people is the
problem for so many people is that they don't understand
the infrastructure. We're going to do something. Okay, we're gonna
do something right here, So just give me one second,
because I need to just give me one second. All right, perfect,
(00:53):
all right. So you just said, you just asked the
question about in terms of, okay, how we do this thing,
how it's done, and a lot of people don't understand.
So here's a perfect example. Yesterday. Yesterday I was doing
a show. I was in Dallas and it was a
(01:14):
golf tournament. That a golf tournament that Nancy liverin Klein has,
and so I was invited to play in it. But
here's the whole deal. I'm doing it, but I'm also
on the road. I'm also you know, traveling, So I'm like, okay,
the golf. Because we had a storm. Normally I would
have done the show for my hotel room. A storm
(01:35):
hit Dallas, so the golf tournament didn't start at nine,
it started at eleven. I was damn So what ended
up happening was I had to do the show from
the course because I couldn't get because we finished at
four fifteen. So as a result by having what you
just described, then this is what that looked like. This
(01:58):
is the literal setup right here where you see right there,
the four lights, the return monitor, you see, the live
you you see you see right there, and again golf,
the golf courses, my backdrop you're seeing. That's the whole
setup right there. All of that stuff is in literally
(02:20):
a twenty two inch carry on and so, and because
again what you have to understand is you have to think.
You have to think efficient, you have to think, Okay,
it's just me, and so how can I distill this
thing down? How can I be as small as possible?
(02:42):
How can I be able to do this? And so
you'll see right here I was in Wisconsin. This is
the look in a hotel room. I carry four LED lights.
A lot of times when you're traveling, the walls are bare.
Luckily got you got color in this room. Normally sometime
hotel rooms got white walls. Well, guess what I bounced.
(03:04):
I bounced that the I bounced the light off of
the wall. Now, all of a sudden, I've given the
show color. And so that's four twenty five LED lights.
They fit in an Amazon eight inch Neil prem bag.
Boom right there, they fit right in. And so again
it's it's when you're when you when you're thinking. I
was up bout three weeks ago, I had a keynote
(03:25):
speech in Milwaukee. Uh, and the problem was the noon speech.
I couldn't fly out to get back to the studio
in time. So and I did this last year, so
this wasn't the first time. And I said, Okay, drive
me to Chicago. I'm gonna catch a nine pm flight
back to d C. I'll do my show from Chicago
(03:46):
or Hair Airport. Now somebody's like, hell, yep, you're gonna
do the show from the airport. So this happened. So
I find you a spot in the airport. Same setup.
So I got portable power, I got my four lights,
I got my camera, I got my live youew my
return minder. This it does in the corner. I got
(04:08):
my omni, I got my omni charge. You see a
teleprompter there, you see the live view. You see my
portable power. Because I wasn't trying to run extension cords
all over the place. So when you understand how the
technology works, then you understand how you can move. And
again you're not trying to sit here and be crazy
(04:31):
with it. And so I know somebody's sitting there going, man,
you're caring a lot. No, this is literally right here.
This is one half of the twin two inch carry
on and this is the other side of the twin
two inch carry on. Everything that I need to broadcast
is in that bag. So the so the whole thinking
for me is constantly. So let's just take audio. Well,
(04:51):
I used to have the Lively microphone, the XLR come
from the camera. Well guess what DJI comes up with
their wireless microphones. Now I'm wireless. Now I can plug
it straight in. Now'm not dealing with frequencies not not
running but a cable. Plus that microphone has like a
hundred foot rain. My cable can't do that. So how
my brain works, I'm constantly trying to think of, Okay,
(05:18):
how more efficient, how smaller can you be? And so
even as I'm sitting right here, the reason I'm able
to show you what I'm showing, I have an ATM
Mini switcher. Well I can also now this is a
little bit more equipment, and so it can't fit in
the bag, so I got to have it through my backpack.
But I have another a ten minute switcher. So a
lot of times when I'm on the road, I may
not have time. I shot some video, I can't upload
(05:41):
it to the to the to drop box and my
staff can download it. But if I have my switcher
with me, boom, just what I just did here, I
can play my video right there from the phone or
from my iPad. I can show the photo. I pull
up live tweets on the show as well, because I'm
basically I'm sitting here coordinating. So when you understand, when
(06:03):
you understand technology, and when you just step back and
now it's a question of okay, just the different pieces.
So for me, it's how can you be small, nimble efficient? Uh?
And so that's set that same portable suitcase. It goes
wherever I go. But I gave a speech in Indianapolis
on Sunday. I was at church. I said, Hey, are
y'all live streaming this? No? Are y'all recording this? Yes?
(06:26):
I got to the place I said, we looked at
your camera. You got a SDI out? You do? Okay? Cool?
I need a SDI out. I set my live streaming,
my live you box up, didn't have to put my
camera up, connect it. I then live stream my speech
from their event, and again you lives in their equipment.
I've done that numerous times. And so that so when
(06:48):
you understand, people got to realize. I went to Communications
high school, Jack Kad's High School, Magic School Communications. So
I learned behind the camera. I didn't I didn't even
want to do it in front of the camera, but
I learned, But how the camera, how all the pieces work.
And so once you do that, now you understand the technology.
Now you understand just you know sort of how these
(07:11):
things work. And so then when you begin to realize
and it's just some basic things that people don't even understand.
So even if we were testing something in our studio,
so you take, you give an example, you just take.
So this is the iPhone and we had this, we
had I think a holly Land connected because we wanted
to be able to use the phone to do for
(07:32):
the cinematic Look, well, the problem is we was like, okay, fine,
well this is the problem here with the iPhone. So
all the markings are still on here. Then we realize
with the black Magic app, you can actually remove the markings.
Now you can do something different. So I am in
a constant and this is people don't understand. And people
stop me and they say, man, I can't believe you
(07:54):
don't have somebody who's not doing that stuff. I said,
why in the hell am I? See? This is also
people don't understand business. Why am I gonna pay somebody
the daily rate, a plane ticket, a hotel room, per
diem to set my equipment up and it takes me
fifteen minutes. That's just dumb business. So if I'm traveling
(08:19):
by myself, I don't need to travel somebody with me
to set my camera up. I can do it. So
and I travel a lot, so that's that's an added expense.
So I am constantly trying to learn. I am constantly
trying to see what's the next thing, what's the next
(08:40):
what can we do next, What's how does this work?
And I'm looking at pieces of equipment. I'm looking at
lights and cameras and all you all sorts of things
you know, I love. I did a whole video. I
did a whole video on YouTube and people can actually
check it out. What do I call it? That's it
was called content creator must have And so I did
this be there because people and you know people, they've
(09:02):
hit me for John O'Brien, my buddy. John's always like Roland,
you should do a masterclass. Charge people like, No, I
want to do that, I said, because I'm not interested
in just now I got to sit here and sign
people up, and I'm like, that's boring as hell, John,
I'm not doing that. But but I did this, and
I did this whole thing because I just needed people
to understand how these things work. And so this is
(09:25):
it right here. I just sat at my kitchen table
and I just went through the DJ Neo, the DJI camera,
the DJ Neo drone and could do this because there
are a lot of people. They're trying to figure it out.
And man, I've done it. I got so much equipment
I got. I got hell I got an FPV DRAWNE
(09:47):
but I haven't even used yet. But I got all
this sort of But it's the knowledge, and I just
think it's stupid to have knowledge and have expertise and
you don't share it because of Okay, what's the whole
purpose of in hoarding it? This makes no sense, But
that's just how I work. I am every day. I'm
sitting here looking at this and testing this, and I'm like,
(10:09):
you know, all this sort of stuff like this here.
So if I was doing my show, I got a
pair of tailler prompter right here, I got the remote
control right here, and I had one for the road.
I literally could have my taileprompter loaded. And now now
I'm on the road and I'm handling my business. But
that's what that's called being though a student of your craft,
(10:31):
and that ties into the business of your craft because
that also impacts your bottom line. If I had to
pay somebody to roll with me, it might I would
probably be spending another another one hundred thousand plus dollars
a year. If I had to have somebody travel with
(10:52):
me to set my stuff up, with all the speeches
and stuff that I give, and that that's just, and
so by me being able to do it, I'm saving
my business one hundred grand minimum
Host
Will Lucas
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.