June 27, 2023 • 37 mins
Matt and I are back in the HER living room telling y’all the road stories that made us say YIKES. Listen in for tales of a green room that turned into an ice box, summer camp hijinks and small town shenanigans!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Everybody, Welcome back to a new episode of Her with
Amina Brown. And my husband Matt is here, dj Oh
Diggy is here in the building in the living room
with us.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to another episode of Her with Amina Brown. I'm
Matt and I'm here with Amina Brown. I feel like
a here a few times it's her with him, So
I am happy to be with her.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Love to see it in so many ways. Okay, so
today I want y'all to really really try to channel
Charles Barkley saying the word terrible for the road stories
we're going to tell you right now. So these are
some of the probably what would be on our list
of like the yikes this This is the yikes of
(01:27):
the road story.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Shout out to your sister yikes on bikes.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, yikes on bikes for this one, guys. Okay, So,
one thing I think we had talked earlier about how
most artists and a lot of speakers too, but in
particularly artists, whether it's indie artists or your mainstream artists,
whether it's artists who are in Christian space like we
used to be in, or whether it's artists who are
(01:51):
just you know, traveling in various sundry places. Most artists
have what's called a rider and our ider rider. Okay,
and if you do do events world you might be like,
what's that? Where there's such thing as a technical writer.
Where in a case like with Matt as a DJ,
the technical writer will have his sound needs his you know,
(02:11):
if he has like visuals, if he's got particular audio
specifications of what he needs. The technical writer tells whoever
is running sound and av at the venue that this
is what he needs as an artist.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I need a table to set up on right, I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Need xl R, I need d I cables or you know,
it's all these things. Wow, look could you see me
name and stuff? Like, I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I mean, I don't really need a d it's a
d I box, But I mean I'm on her so
d I cable?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Nah, I just I really I knew it was d
I y'all. I really didn't know if it was cable
on the end. I just like threw it out there
to see if it was gonna work out. So it
is d I box, which we did have to use
in your setup at one time.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
At one time.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All right, So now there is a regular writer that's
not the tech writer and the regular writer can have
all manner of things in it according to the artist's specifications.
I know I have a food writer because I have
certain dietary restrictions that I have to keep to when
I'm on the road. We had our travel specifications. We're
(03:15):
in there as far as the airline that we traveled,
the types of hotels that we, you know, like to
stay in, all these things even down to now what
I'm trying to get to and telling y'all about the
writer is the reason why artists and speakers have writers
is because nine times out of ten, if you see
some on the writer that's kind of wild sound, then,
(03:36):
especially for independent artists, I know, we know plenty of
like rock stars who have like I want white doves in.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
My green room and a baby piano.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I want all of the green eminems pulled out. Like
I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about when
you see some things that you're like, why does it say,
you know, proper heating and air. Why does it say
a hotel room where the doors are not on the outside.
You know, why does it say those things? And when
it says those things, it's because something got messed up
(04:07):
at a gig in the past, and that's how those
things end up on the rider.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's always something that you're like, nah, we wouldn't have
to like spell this out, and then you get there
and be.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Like, oh, oh, okay, we're going to just spell that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Out specifically say this.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That wasn't a common sense thing, right. So one thing
that my writer says is it says that I need
an area prior to performing that has proper heating and
proper air conditioning. And the reason why it says that
is because I used to do a gig that was
in the mountains in undisclosed location and it was for students,
(04:44):
and so when you went to the gig, it was
like in a big convention center pretty much. And the
year that I went to it, the green room was
like was basically like behind the convention area. So if
y'all have ever been behind like an arena or a
convention center, pretty much the back of it is like
(05:06):
all the other like different used chairs and different things
that they have had to section off different cases for
sound and video equipment is back there, right. But you
know what's not normally back there is a green room.
Why because it doesn't have heating and air in the
same way that the indoors portion, Like it's all indoors,
(05:28):
but the part where the actual people is.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sitting in people's supposed to be at the people ain't
supposed to be in.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, And so it was nineteen degrees and we're in
like a warehouse looking kind of area for the green room.
So the ceilings are very very tall, and there is
no heating back there. I just know that the organization
had plugged in some space heaters. And I'm gonna tell y'all,
when you're in something that could be the size of
(05:56):
a cathedral, a space heater, it turns out is not
going to heat properly.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's heating a space, but not this whole space.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And I'm there as a poet. There are also singers there,
and the way the area like it was so cold
it was like prime time for us to be getting pneumonia.
Like the singers are nervous as hell because they are
in the back, Like am I here trying to get paid?
But I'm also gonna get sick because it's kind of
(06:30):
somehow like it's moist air like it would be like outside.
It's cold enough that it could be snowing outside and
I'm in here, I'm inside, but it's still just as
cold as it is outside. They gave us little hand
warmers to warm our hands, and pretty much our choices
were either we'll be in the green room and have
(06:50):
a little bit of space to ourselves and be cold,
or be out there where the students were and have
the students like just talking to you, you know, students
and other leaders that were there chatting you up until
your performance. That was your choice, and for introverted artists, yikesikes.
So that that event is why my.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Writer a snuggle Snuggle weather right there for heating.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And proper heating in air. Also, I would like to
speak about gigs and traveling to racism.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You know, yep, yep, could use it, you know how
like whenever you're looking up something on yell nearest to
me four stars and above, if you're looking up now
and filter, that would be kind of interesting to have
a racist area if.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I if I go to this restaurant, am I traveling
to racism? Like I would like someone?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know how, like Apple Maps, You'll be driving along
and it'll slow down and the thing will pop up
saying that there was like something some hazard was in
the road, and they'll ask is it still there or
has it been cleared? I never know what the sec
because I'm always scared that I want to hit clear
as X out of it. But it would be interesting
(08:13):
if it was like racism spotted here, is it still here?
And we'd be like, yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
If you're traveling through that area, you will indeed travel
to racism. Yes, yes. So Matt and I, as we've
discussed in previous episodes, have traveled all over the country,
Like all over the country, y'all. There are very few
states that we did not travel to at least.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Once, either together or separately.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah. So we traveled all over the country, various regions,
various times of the year, like all sorts of things. Okay,
And there was one time that we got booked for
a youth event and I want to say it was
in Kentucky, Tennessee area. This is you know, it gets
blurry now, but it was somewhere. It was somewhere that
would still be considered the South, right, but maybe bordering
(09:03):
what could become like the Midwest and a little bit.
And I remember Matt and I, you know, we were
talking to you all about the southeast portions of the road.
And we live in Atlanta in the southeast, but Atlanta
is a major metropolitan city. It is a sprawling place.
It's like, you're in Atlanta, you can almost eat any
(09:25):
kind of food you want to eat. You have all
sorts of choices. Being in Atlanta and being in a
small town in the southeast are two different things.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Atlanta is like an island. There's Atlanta and then there's Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's Atlanta and Charlotte and some of
these other cities that you'd get there and be like ooh,
like I'm in a city when I'm here, and then
you could be like two hours from that in a
very very small town and be like, yikes, I'm concerned
from my life right here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You could be thirty minutes outside in Atlanta and people like, oh,
you mean go into town.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Like okay, yikes, all right. So when we were at
this gig, now, sometimes when we would do these southeast runs,
it would basically be like we were only in the
small town for a night, right, So we'd like be
at this small college and whatever this little town was,
do our gig there, drive two hours to the next gig.
(10:19):
Sometimes that was the run. But every now and then
we got booked for a camp, and this is a
good time for us to talk about camp life. Oh man,
it has a time because when you get booked for
a camp, the camp has a limited budget. The camp
ain't paying for people to come in for one day.
They gonna pay They're gonna try to pay you as
well as they can, or I won't that's too much
(10:42):
of a statement. They you gonna get another They gonna pay
you what they're gonna pay you. They maybe not gonna
pay you as high as they can, but the number
is gonna feel high to you at first when you
see it, until you really think to yourself that they're
asking you to come to that place for five days.
The camp gonna run Monday to Friday, sometimes into Saturday,
(11:05):
depends on how to set up it. And if these
are church kids, then they got to end in time
to get back to their churches on Sunday, right, So
they typically paying you for five days because they gonna
have like a little sendoff service on Friday where they
got to get the kids amped up to like go back. Totally.
Don't play the air quote secular do not play the
(11:30):
secular music for those children, is what they're gonna tell you. So,
when you're in this situation, you are not in Atlanta,
where you can be like, hmmm, where are some vegan eats?
Where is some organic? Where are some dairy free food? Like, No,
those aren't your choices. You're in small town wherever. For
(11:54):
five days, they got a heart ease. They got someplace
that's kind of like cafet curious style. It's probably not
like some southern food something.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Some green guys sitting in some liquid that you can't discern.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
They got some restaurant that got some some either fried
kind of foods, fried fish, chickens, all of it. Or
they got one that's got some barbecue something. But do
not ask those people for vegetables. It's cold slaw and start.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You have a whole foods anywhere nearby?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
No, good night. You might sometimes in towns. No, you
might find a mom and pop health food store. Maybe
that's like the size of a convenience store.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But it's never opened the day you're trying to go.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
No, it's not. The hours are very short, and you
have like three hours that you could eat in that place.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Whatever day you're trying to go they're.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Not going to be open that day, no, thank you.
So this particular camp that we were at, we were
already having a time, and I remember we were trying
to just you know, we're trying to figure you're out, like, Okay,
what's in the area that's close enough. Because here's the
other thing. When these type of camps book you, they
are trying to get everything out of you they can
(13:10):
in five days. So you typically don't have a day off,
and sometimes during the day you might only have like
a two hour break to go get some food before
you got to be back for a sound check, or
be back for a session, be back for a Q
and A or whatever. So when you're going to eat,
you really got to be focused on your focus. You
can like eat and get back. So we find a
restaurant to go to walk up in there. And people
(13:34):
asked us a lot when we were dating and got engaged.
I had quite a few people at our church at
that time asking us had we thought about what it
was going to be like to travel together as an
interracial couple. And I didn't want to like dismiss what
they were asking, but I just didn't expect that it
was going to be that as much of a problem,
(13:56):
I guess as they were asking us, right, But this
particular place was the one moment I can remember being like,
oh shit, I'm wondering if we need to be like
concerned for our safety.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, it was definitely the most concerning place that we've been.
We had some some Midwest towns where I could tell
people are uncomfortable. I was like, all right, I got
to stay close, but that one was like, I'm not
going to the bathroom. I'm not I'm sitting right here
by you. It will not be a time that I'm
not sitting beside of you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Like we walked up in there and we could hear
the people's forks hit their plates that we walked in
there together. And I'm pretty sure this was in This
is not me saying that me and Matt don't walk
around holding hands today, but I'm just telling y'all, I'm
pretty sure we had only been married a couple of
years at this point, So we were two people who
walk right in a place holding hands with the fingers
(14:51):
in the twine, like it is very clear that we
as not friends, that we A is not coworkers.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
My work associates none of that.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So I think they saw our little lovey dovey selves
walking up in there, them forks clink clink on the plate.
It got quiet as hell. I was like, I literally
was like, I don't I don't know, because like we've
had some other times where we were traveling and like
pulled up to a place and saw like Confederate flags
(15:18):
outside of it, or saw like references to Dixie and
like skirt skirm like for us ride back like you
got somewhere else good night. That was one of the
first times of being in a place and seeing people
like freaked out.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like reacting the way they were. It was like, she's
we're not making extra o it. It was really that
wild of a reaction.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The only thing that really helped us was the fact
that we were at that camp and one of the
youth groups was in the restaurant and they saw us
and they were like.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Did you hell did yet?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I made up wow like and they made whatever noise
they made, and that really saved us that day. It
made the rest of the people to back up and
the restaurant kind of chill. It also made us have
to eat fast as hell, so that we could be
done with our meal close to.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
The time before they got back with a tiki torches.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Close to the town. The youth group was leaving too,
so we wouldn't be stuck in there by ourselves. But
that meant in a small town that had four places
to eat, now there's only three that we can eat at.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It was almost like, remember in the last episode when
I mentioned that Portland was like a place where there
was whimsical with the furrow brow. It was Portland minus
the whims It was just dudes in overalls not afraid
to stare at you with a very furl nah.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
We had we had to be like, all right, here's
what We're gonna get our food and take it back
to the hotel, like big yikes. Okay. Other things that
I want to talk about is one of the things
that makes a gig the worst is when you were
asked to do something that you thought was going to
(17:19):
be really cool and then the plan gets changed. The
last ah, that's a good thank you for using that
old old switcher roo. That's that. As an artist, that's
a rough one. Some of this now, like looking back
on it is like business lessons of like like I
(17:40):
had to these gigs we about to tell y'all about
our reasons. I had to learn, like, don't just say
you're going to do a particular gig like blanketly in
the contract, like have some things in the contract to
protect you that says you have to approve all creative
changes before they're made, or make the contracts say what
(18:01):
you're going to do when you get there so that
way they can't change it. But say at that time,
our contracts would say things like Amina and Matt when
we were performing together, am I saying Meena and matt
Owen are going to perform for ninety minutes over the
duration of the event. Well, that gave them whatever they
wanted to do with that ninety minutes, which means they
could ask us to do the wackest things in.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
The world and did.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And we didn't have any way. We didn't have any
way outside of deciding we weren't going to do the
gig at all, as any like thing that we could
do to speak up for ourselves pretty much. So two
of our worst at undisclosed locations. One of them was
again you know what the funny thing is again with
(18:44):
the camps.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Gosh see, here's the thing with camps you kind of
brought up earlier is that like you get to a
camp and over the period of these days, these people
become very naw you and so it feels awesome everywhere
you walk around. They're like, yeah, it's like it's like
(19:08):
you have people cheering people. Can I take a picture
with you? Will you sign my piece of pizza? Will
you sign my elbow? You know, you just feel like,
whoa man, I have a that's right, I am good
at what I do. Thank you. So those parts feel
like for that period of time, you're like you are it,
(19:30):
and then you go back home and go to Target
and nobody's you know. But then there's also the other
side of it, which is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
There's also two different types. This is over generalizing, of course, y'all,
but there really is almost like feels like there's two
different types of church camp for kids, for high schoolers
in particular, there's sort of your your mid budget camp,
which the one we were telling you all about that
was like somewhere in the southeast Tucky, tennes See something.
(20:01):
This is where a very small nonprofit in that area
that is probably being run by a coalition of youth
pastors who are in that area. They pull their resources
together because they can't afford to organize their own camps individually,
so they pull their money together so that they could
put on the best camp they can for those kids.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But they really got a budget very well to pull
the camp off, which means the churches that are coming
there are not these churches with like huge budgets, huge resources.
Then there's Rich Christian Kids Camp. And this is what
we're talking about right now. Rich Christian Kids Camp be
on a nice beach, be in some place where the kid.
(20:44):
First of all, the kids can actually wear swimwear. I
couldn't even wear swimwear when I was going to youth
group events.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You better put that T shirt on.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You had to put a T shirt on. I don't
care if they see nipples out. It's a problem for
anybody that got nips. All nips need to be covered up,
all kneecaps whatever. Rich kid Camp means they can afford
to pay you for you to maybe come in one time,
instead of mid to low budget camp has to pay
(21:16):
you to try to convince you to be there for
five days. Rich Kid Camp got enough money for those
kids to be staying not in cabins, but in a hotel,
very nice hotels where they have access to very nice beach.
They have money to pay a certain amount of artists
that will stay there for the week, and then they
have money to pay certain like kind of spotlight artists
that would come, you know and do their thing for
(21:37):
the night. Matt and I in these situations really could
do both. But in Rich Kid Camp, they already had
their people that was going to be there all week.
So we had actually gotten booked to do our show
that we had built together. At the time. We were
really excited about it because the show was going really
well in front of students, you know, and so we
(21:57):
were so excited about it. We were getting and the
way the camp was, we pretty much had like a
certain amount of weeks in the summer that we were
going to have to travel back to that same place
once a week for like several weeks in the summer.
But that meant we pretty much let that be our summer,
you know, like we couldn't hold or take on certain
(22:18):
other gigs during the summer because we had that. Okay,
so we find out maybe two weeks before we were
supposed to go to the gig that they had decided
they didn't want our show anymore. They had decided they
didn't want Matt to DJ at all. They had decided
they had some readings that they wanted me to read
(22:39):
as a narrator for the way that they had changed it,
and we had to go to lunch with them. I
remember this very clear. We had to go to lunch
with them, and it was kind of a weird lunch
because we had the option to walk away, but for
us at the time, it was a lot of money
to walk away from it. It was by then, we're
(23:00):
two weeks ahead of the summer, So all the other
camps that we could have booked, maybe the mid budget
camps that we could have booked, or other rich Christian
kids camps we could have booked, they're already booked. At
two weeks before the summer is about to start.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
What you're going to do?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So they I think to me it sort of felt
like they knew we had the option to say no,
but they also knew they were putting us in a pickle.
They were putting us in a place where like what
could we say? So it was sort of like a
sorry not sorry, lunch, like, sorry, you might feel a
way about this, but if you want to get paid,
(23:35):
this is what we're doing. And we had to stick
with it. And that was miserable.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It was miserable.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It was miserable. I have never been that miserable near
a beach several times a summer. Then I was that summer.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That was a long drive every time, y'all. And it's
not like what they got out of you was like,
oh yeah, you know that worked, because you know, sometimes
you can have creative differences for someone. Sure, sometimes you
can have like an idea of you know, what's going
and with both of us. Even now, whenever someone brings
(24:15):
one an or the other or both of us into
a situation, we realize we're working inside of a lot
of moving pieces. There's a lot of moving pieces, a
lot of people, and so there are a lot of
conversations that we're not a part of. So there may
be something that has been this has kind of been
whittled down, a wheel down, wheeled down, and you may
(24:35):
not see the full picture. But if you trust us
and go with it, and you know, so you know,
we really try to get in and go with the
first because we're working with larger structures that have a
lot of moving parts. So I get it. But in
a lot of these instances where they start toying with
what you do or what I do, it's not like
(24:58):
they ever get the best version of it. In this case,
it turned out to be like, really, they could have
got anybody right that thing, and for us it wasn't fulfilling.
We didn't enjoy it. And for us also, a thing
that I've learned about like being a performance artist, is
(25:19):
that you when you say yes to something, you are
saying yes to somebody else seeing you do that something
and have to do it again. Well, if you're that
miserable doing the thing, probably shouldn't do it that one time,
because if so, somebody would be like, ooh, will you
come do this? And now you've built a career of
(25:39):
doing something that you hate doing, or you didn't spend
the time doing that. I'm kind of preaching to myself
right now, right right yo.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Like, I think it's interesting us talking through this now
because it's like when you look back on it. Matt
and I have been having a lot of conversations around
the term artist versus the term content creator, and I
think what that miserable summer really showed me is how
you know, when we were in church space, and this
(26:11):
is very true of church space as an industry. It
can also be true of corporate space too what I'm
about to say, but we experienced it very particularly in
church space. There was sort of this idea that art
couldn't be important for art's sake, that it had to
be carrying, it had to be a vehicle to carry
(26:33):
something else. So it couldn't be that the art could
be there because it's fun or because it would bring
people enjoyment or bring them joy or put a smile
on it like that couldn't be the point. The point,
you know, especially you're in a religious setting. So the
point is we have a big message we're trying to
get across. So it doesn't matter if your vehicle is
(26:55):
a go kart a tow truck. We have a big,
old message that we want to put on that and
that always has to be the point. And you know,
for those who are religious, that point is important. But
I think here's the part where it got tricky for
a lot of artists in that space is you were
really venturing more into becoming a content creator than being
(27:15):
able to be an artist because you couldn't then just
make stuff because you had a question you wanted to explore,
or because that felt interesting to you, or because that
made you laugh. You always had to be a bit
furrow browed in order to make art over there. And
so that was one instance where we had created something
(27:36):
that we thought was really artful and beautiful, but it
was fun and truthfully it told the message they wanted
to tell in an amazing way. But they went back
to what was the safe zone and they didn't give
us any leeway to work with them as artists. They
put us in the place of sort of feeling like,
(27:58):
you know, we were just we were just works for hire.
We couldn't be collaborators, we couldn't be people that they
could trust as professionals. We just had to be people
that want to do whatever they said we should do.
And so that was a long summer of both of
us having to realize, like, first of all, we want
(28:18):
to be artists, you know, we want to be artists
who who have the opportunity to explore ideas because they
deserve to be explored.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Stories.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, and if there ends up being I think I
think the thing probably where we both are now on
our art is like if there ends up being air
quotes a message there, it's for the reader or the
listener or the watcher to discern that. It's not for
me as the creator to say. And the whole message
of why I tap dance wow is because people need
(28:50):
to know feed are important. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Flip the picture over and it was Jesus face the
whole time.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's like, just dance. Yeah, let the person who's there
as the audience take from it. Trust the audience to
take from it what they should.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, Yeah, that'sting. That is interesting, like dance in humanity
because how many times was someone like unsure about it,
but they went ahead and booked us let us do
our thing. Or even for you, I've seen it with
you as a poet, where they're like, I'm not sure
and they bring you into their corporate setting, sure to
(29:29):
do you do a presentation, tell your to tell your
stories because there is a motivational talk, or want to
kind of get you into this idea. But when they
really allow you to get up there and do your thing.
Every single time, I've watched it time and time again,
whether it's the two of us whether it's just you,
whether it's me by myself. They come back and they go, wow,
(29:52):
I get it now, I see it now, Oh why
you know? And the crowd loves it. It's a win
for everybody because something authentic happened in that room. Something
stories were told. People got what they got from it
because they showed up caring. What they showed up caring.
(30:12):
We didn't make sure and all the pieces of the
And I get it when you're working on a team
and you're putting an event together and you have now
gotten all the way down to your hashtag and the
color and of your logo, and you've gotten down to everything.
The theme of this thing is water. And then so
(30:36):
as a DJ, how many songs about water do you have? Well,
people probably aren't going to walk away being like, man,
that guy sure played a lot of water songs. That
is awesome. It's people walk away. Man, I felt good.
Oh that was great. So it is almost like when
people don't put their hands in it too much, they
actually get the better right end of the deal. They
(31:00):
actually get a better artist, a better you, a better me.
And that's one less thing for them to have to
really think about. Like because if they bring you in.
If they bring me in, somebody brings me in. My
job is that you don't have to stand there and
watch me and make sure I'm gonna show up and
be set up.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Right and be professional.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I'm gonna do all these things, and I'm one
less thing that you have to work. You can sit
back and know that thing you brought me in to
do that's covered.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think Matt and I are both like people who
work with us would say, we're both great collaborators, and
I think that's a strength of ours in the sense
that we can go into a lot of situations, which
is a lot of what happened in church world in particular.
You're going into situations the event has a theme, like
you were saying, like they want you to fit into
that They've got a particular moment they're trying to create,
(31:53):
and like we can be good collaborators with people, but
sometimes that doesn't work to your bis fit as an
artist in a certain way. Because we also both know
artists who would walk in and be like, this is
my shit that I do and this is all I'm doing.
So if you wanted that or this or some other idea,
(32:14):
then book somebody else, but this is me, this is
what I do, and let me do my shit kind
of thing. And I would look at artists and be like, yeah,
I wonder if like that makes you not so easy
to work with. But sometimes it was like we made
ourselves so easy to work with, But then on the
other other hand, we didn't get the respect of the
(32:35):
fact that we are very much professionals at what we're
doing and that you should trust us to come in
and do what we do, and if you wanted something else,
book someone else. So I think for each artist the
answer is somewhere there in the middle. But I feel
like both Matt and I had to learn after these experiences,
Like I feel like we both had to learn how
(32:55):
to how to collaborate with the people who want to
be good collaborates, and how, on the other hand, to say,
this is what I do, so that's if that's what
you want, then book me. But if you want somebody
that you can control or that you can wield in
whatever way, I'm just not your person. And that's okay.
(33:16):
Maybe there's somebody else you know that does that type
of thing. So lots of lessons to learn from terrible
gigs y'all.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And I'll say also that if you are an artist
listening or a maker like you make something, like you,
there is a good that you provide that you sell
that is you, whether it's you doing something, you making something,
you performing something. Get somebody in your life that is
a good friend that will help you build some better practices.
(33:45):
Right because I'm talking about this morning, Ameina was like,
do not send that text. Talk talk it out with me.
Do not reply to that email, talk it out with me.
Do not like why tell me this? Why were you
about to say that? Because when you're an artist or
you make something, you're an entrepreneur. You live and eat
(34:09):
from what you do. And someone comes to you, you go, oh,
you'll pay me money to do this. I would be
happy to do this. And then also if you came
up broke, there's something inside of you, there's something inside
of me that's like, if I don't say yes to you,
and I don't make it as easy as possible for
(34:31):
you to bring me in and do it for as
cheap as possible, you might move on and find somebody cheaper,
find somebody easier to work with, somebody that will say
yes to whatever you're offering and then I may go without,
and I know that's not true. In the end, I've
lived long enough to be like, that's not true. But
you have to you have to find somebody in your
(34:53):
life that will be there with you. I got lucky
I'm married in because Mina. Mina been making sure I
had some business practices. When she first met me, I
was doing everything for free.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
That's true, that's true, and I was like, we got
to put a stop to that. But then the other
thing is you as an artist, you you will jump
into what you do because it's fun to you, like
some of you, some of what you do with like
when you're making music, sometimes you make music just because,
like you want to play in it, you want to
experiment with it, you want to see what it is.
(35:28):
And so I think we give back and forth to
each other that way, because I've had to learn in
a lot of these hard situations how to think like
a business woman. But sometimes I have to remind myself,
you know, when we're creating, to be like, hey, it's
okay to also play an experiment with your art and
make stuff just because right. Yeah, So that's us being
(35:48):
in a partnership that way. Works so great, and that's
why artists should be in community with other people, so
you can have other people to say to you you're
worth more than that, so you can have people to
say to you how they treated you at that events. True,
do not go to another event. Update your contract so
your contract. Don't put you in situations like that. Don't
work with those people on your team if they gonna
(36:09):
book you for things like that. You know, so artists
be in community and do not accept trash treatment. And
if you book artists, try I know it's scary to
you if you used to doing the same thing at
your event, but try to let the artists do what
they do. You would not go in an oar and
(36:29):
stand there behind the surgeon and be like, now, this
is just me thinking about it. I'm not a surgeon,
but this is me thinking about it. I wouldn't cut
it right there. I wouldn't cut it right there, just
me thinking about it. But you do it to poets
and musicians and visual artists. You do it to us
all the time. Stop it, let us do what we do.
We're great at it. See y'all next time. Her with
(37:05):
Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for sol Grafeity
Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network
in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget
to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
Everybody, Welcome back to a new episode of Her with
Amina Brown. And my husband Matt is here, dj Oh
Diggy is here in the building in the living room
with us.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to another episode of Her with Amina Brown. I'm
Matt and I'm here with Amina Brown. I feel like
a here a few times it's her with him, So
I am happy to be with her.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Love to see it in so many ways. Okay, so
today I want y'all to really really try to channel
Charles Barkley saying the word terrible for the road stories
we're going to tell you right now. So these are
some of the probably what would be on our list
of like the yikes this This is the yikes of
(01:27):
the road story.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Shout out to your sister yikes on bikes.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, yikes on bikes for this one, guys. Okay, So,
one thing I think we had talked earlier about how
most artists and a lot of speakers too, but in
particularly artists, whether it's indie artists or your mainstream artists,
whether it's artists who are in Christian space like we
used to be in, or whether it's artists who are
(01:51):
just you know, traveling in various sundry places. Most artists
have what's called a rider and our ider rider. Okay,
and if you do do events world you might be like,
what's that? Where there's such thing as a technical writer.
Where in a case like with Matt as a DJ,
the technical writer will have his sound needs his you know,
(02:11):
if he has like visuals, if he's got particular audio
specifications of what he needs. The technical writer tells whoever
is running sound and av at the venue that this
is what he needs as an artist.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I need a table to set up on right, I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Need xl R, I need d I cables or you know,
it's all these things. Wow, look could you see me
name and stuff? Like, I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I mean, I don't really need a d it's a
d I box, But I mean I'm on her so
d I cable?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Nah, I just I really I knew it was d
I y'all. I really didn't know if it was cable
on the end. I just like threw it out there
to see if it was gonna work out. So it
is d I box, which we did have to use
in your setup at one time.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
At one time.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All right, So now there is a regular writer that's
not the tech writer and the regular writer can have
all manner of things in it according to the artist's specifications.
I know I have a food writer because I have
certain dietary restrictions that I have to keep to when
I'm on the road. We had our travel specifications. We're
(03:15):
in there as far as the airline that we traveled,
the types of hotels that we, you know, like to
stay in, all these things even down to now what
I'm trying to get to and telling y'all about the
writer is the reason why artists and speakers have writers
is because nine times out of ten, if you see
some on the writer that's kind of wild sound, then,
(03:36):
especially for independent artists, I know, we know plenty of
like rock stars who have like I want white doves in.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
My green room and a baby piano.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
I want all of the green eminems pulled out. Like
I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about when
you see some things that you're like, why does it say,
you know, proper heating and air. Why does it say
a hotel room where the doors are not on the outside.
You know, why does it say those things? And when
it says those things, it's because something got messed up
(04:07):
at a gig in the past, and that's how those
things end up on the rider.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's always something that you're like, nah, we wouldn't have
to like spell this out, and then you get there
and be.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Like, oh, oh, okay, we're going to just spell that.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Out specifically say this.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That wasn't a common sense thing, right. So one thing
that my writer says is it says that I need
an area prior to performing that has proper heating and
proper air conditioning. And the reason why it says that
is because I used to do a gig that was
in the mountains in undisclosed location and it was for students,
(04:44):
and so when you went to the gig, it was
like in a big convention center pretty much. And the
year that I went to it, the green room was
like was basically like behind the convention area. So if
y'all have ever been behind like an arena or a
convention center, pretty much the back of it is like
(05:06):
all the other like different used chairs and different things
that they have had to section off different cases for
sound and video equipment is back there, right. But you
know what's not normally back there is a green room.
Why because it doesn't have heating and air in the
same way that the indoors portion, Like it's all indoors,
(05:28):
but the part where the actual people is.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Sitting in people's supposed to be at the people ain't
supposed to be in.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, And so it was nineteen degrees and we're in
like a warehouse looking kind of area for the green room.
So the ceilings are very very tall, and there is
no heating back there. I just know that the organization
had plugged in some space heaters. And I'm gonna tell y'all,
when you're in something that could be the size of
(05:56):
a cathedral, a space heater, it turns out is not
going to heat properly.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's heating a space, but not this whole space.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And I'm there as a poet. There are also singers there,
and the way the area like it was so cold
it was like prime time for us to be getting pneumonia.
Like the singers are nervous as hell because they are
in the back, Like am I here trying to get paid?
But I'm also gonna get sick because it's kind of
(06:30):
somehow like it's moist air like it would be like outside.
It's cold enough that it could be snowing outside and
I'm in here, I'm inside, but it's still just as
cold as it is outside. They gave us little hand
warmers to warm our hands, and pretty much our choices
were either we'll be in the green room and have
(06:50):
a little bit of space to ourselves and be cold,
or be out there where the students were and have
the students like just talking to you, you know, students
and other leaders that were there chatting you up until
your performance. That was your choice, and for introverted artists, yikesikes.
So that that event is why my.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Writer a snuggle Snuggle weather right there for heating.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And proper heating in air. Also, I would like to
speak about gigs and traveling to racism.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You know, yep, yep, could use it, you know how
like whenever you're looking up something on yell nearest to
me four stars and above, if you're looking up now
and filter, that would be kind of interesting to have
a racist area if.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I if I go to this restaurant, am I traveling
to racism? Like I would like someone?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know how, like Apple Maps, You'll be driving along
and it'll slow down and the thing will pop up
saying that there was like something some hazard was in
the road, and they'll ask is it still there or
has it been cleared? I never know what the sec
because I'm always scared that I want to hit clear
as X out of it. But it would be interesting
(08:13):
if it was like racism spotted here, is it still here?
And we'd be like, yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
If you're traveling through that area, you will indeed travel
to racism. Yes, yes. So Matt and I, as we've
discussed in previous episodes, have traveled all over the country,
Like all over the country, y'all. There are very few
states that we did not travel to at least.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Once, either together or separately.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah. So we traveled all over the country, various regions,
various times of the year, like all sorts of things. Okay,
And there was one time that we got booked for
a youth event and I want to say it was
in Kentucky, Tennessee area. This is you know, it gets
blurry now, but it was somewhere. It was somewhere that
would still be considered the South, right, but maybe bordering
(09:03):
what could become like the Midwest and a little bit.
And I remember Matt and I, you know, we were
talking to you all about the southeast portions of the road.
And we live in Atlanta in the southeast, but Atlanta
is a major metropolitan city. It is a sprawling place.
It's like, you're in Atlanta, you can almost eat any
(09:25):
kind of food you want to eat. You have all
sorts of choices. Being in Atlanta and being in a
small town in the southeast are two different things.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Atlanta is like an island. There's Atlanta and then there's Georgia.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's Atlanta and Charlotte and some of
these other cities that you'd get there and be like ooh,
like I'm in a city when I'm here, and then
you could be like two hours from that in a
very very small town and be like, yikes, I'm concerned
from my life right here.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You could be thirty minutes outside in Atlanta and people like, oh,
you mean go into town.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Like okay, yikes, all right. So when we were at
this gig, now, sometimes when we would do these southeast runs,
it would basically be like we were only in the
small town for a night, right, So we'd like be
at this small college and whatever this little town was,
do our gig there, drive two hours to the next gig.
(10:19):
Sometimes that was the run. But every now and then
we got booked for a camp, and this is a
good time for us to talk about camp life. Oh man,
it has a time because when you get booked for
a camp, the camp has a limited budget. The camp
ain't paying for people to come in for one day.
They gonna pay They're gonna try to pay you as
well as they can, or I won't that's too much
(10:42):
of a statement. They you gonna get another They gonna pay
you what they're gonna pay you. They maybe not gonna
pay you as high as they can, but the number
is gonna feel high to you at first when you
see it, until you really think to yourself that they're
asking you to come to that place for five days.
The camp gonna run Monday to Friday, sometimes into Saturday,
(11:05):
depends on how to set up it. And if these
are church kids, then they got to end in time
to get back to their churches on Sunday, right, So
they typically paying you for five days because they gonna
have like a little sendoff service on Friday where they
got to get the kids amped up to like go back. Totally.
Don't play the air quote secular do not play the
(11:30):
secular music for those children, is what they're gonna tell you. So,
when you're in this situation, you are not in Atlanta,
where you can be like, hmmm, where are some vegan eats?
Where is some organic? Where are some dairy free food? Like, No,
those aren't your choices. You're in small town wherever. For
(11:54):
five days, they got a heart ease. They got someplace
that's kind of like cafet curious style. It's probably not
like some southern food something.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Some green guys sitting in some liquid that you can't discern.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
They got some restaurant that got some some either fried
kind of foods, fried fish, chickens, all of it. Or
they got one that's got some barbecue something. But do
not ask those people for vegetables. It's cold slaw and start.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
You have a whole foods anywhere nearby?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
No, good night. You might sometimes in towns. No, you
might find a mom and pop health food store. Maybe
that's like the size of a convenience store.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But it's never opened the day you're trying to go.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
No, it's not. The hours are very short, and you
have like three hours that you could eat in that place.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Whatever day you're trying to go they're.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Not going to be open that day, no, thank you.
So this particular camp that we were at, we were
already having a time, and I remember we were trying
to just you know, we're trying to figure you're out, like, Okay,
what's in the area that's close enough. Because here's the
other thing. When these type of camps book you, they
are trying to get everything out of you they can
(13:10):
in five days. So you typically don't have a day off,
and sometimes during the day you might only have like
a two hour break to go get some food before
you got to be back for a sound check, or
be back for a session, be back for a Q
and A or whatever. So when you're going to eat,
you really got to be focused on your focus. You
can like eat and get back. So we find a
restaurant to go to walk up in there. And people
(13:34):
asked us a lot when we were dating and got engaged.
I had quite a few people at our church at
that time asking us had we thought about what it
was going to be like to travel together as an
interracial couple. And I didn't want to like dismiss what
they were asking, but I just didn't expect that it
was going to be that as much of a problem,
(13:56):
I guess as they were asking us, right, But this
particular place was the one moment I can remember being like,
oh shit, I'm wondering if we need to be like
concerned for our safety.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, it was definitely the most concerning place that we've been.
We had some some Midwest towns where I could tell
people are uncomfortable. I was like, all right, I got
to stay close, but that one was like, I'm not
going to the bathroom. I'm not I'm sitting right here
by you. It will not be a time that I'm
not sitting beside of you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Like we walked up in there and we could hear
the people's forks hit their plates that we walked in
there together. And I'm pretty sure this was in This
is not me saying that me and Matt don't walk
around holding hands today, but I'm just telling y'all, I'm
pretty sure we had only been married a couple of
years at this point, So we were two people who
walk right in a place holding hands with the fingers
(14:51):
in the twine, like it is very clear that we
as not friends, that we A is not coworkers.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
My work associates none of that.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So I think they saw our little lovey dovey selves
walking up in there, them forks clink clink on the plate.
It got quiet as hell. I was like, I literally
was like, I don't I don't know, because like we've
had some other times where we were traveling and like
pulled up to a place and saw like Confederate flags
(15:18):
outside of it, or saw like references to Dixie and
like skirt skirm like for us ride back like you
got somewhere else good night. That was one of the
first times of being in a place and seeing people
like freaked out.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like reacting the way they were. It was like, she's
we're not making extra o it. It was really that
wild of a reaction.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The only thing that really helped us was the fact
that we were at that camp and one of the
youth groups was in the restaurant and they saw us
and they were like.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Did you hell did yet?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I made up wow like and they made whatever noise
they made, and that really saved us that day. It
made the rest of the people to back up and
the restaurant kind of chill. It also made us have
to eat fast as hell, so that we could be
done with our meal close to.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
The time before they got back with a tiki torches.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Close to the town. The youth group was leaving too,
so we wouldn't be stuck in there by ourselves. But
that meant in a small town that had four places
to eat, now there's only three that we can eat at.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
It was almost like, remember in the last episode when
I mentioned that Portland was like a place where there
was whimsical with the furrow brow. It was Portland minus
the whims It was just dudes in overalls not afraid
to stare at you with a very furl nah.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
We had we had to be like, all right, here's
what We're gonna get our food and take it back
to the hotel, like big yikes. Okay. Other things that
I want to talk about is one of the things
that makes a gig the worst is when you were
asked to do something that you thought was going to
(17:19):
be really cool and then the plan gets changed. The
last ah, that's a good thank you for using that
old old switcher roo. That's that. As an artist, that's
a rough one. Some of this now, like looking back
on it is like business lessons of like like I
(17:40):
had to these gigs we about to tell y'all about
our reasons. I had to learn, like, don't just say
you're going to do a particular gig like blanketly in
the contract, like have some things in the contract to
protect you that says you have to approve all creative
changes before they're made, or make the contracts say what
(18:01):
you're going to do when you get there so that
way they can't change it. But say at that time,
our contracts would say things like Amina and Matt when
we were performing together, am I saying Meena and matt
Owen are going to perform for ninety minutes over the
duration of the event. Well, that gave them whatever they
wanted to do with that ninety minutes, which means they
could ask us to do the wackest things in.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
The world and did.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And we didn't have any way. We didn't have any
way outside of deciding we weren't going to do the
gig at all, as any like thing that we could
do to speak up for ourselves pretty much. So two
of our worst at undisclosed locations. One of them was
again you know what the funny thing is again with
(18:44):
the camps.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Gosh see, here's the thing with camps you kind of
brought up earlier is that like you get to a
camp and over the period of these days, these people
become very naw you and so it feels awesome everywhere
you walk around. They're like, yeah, it's like it's like
(19:08):
you have people cheering people. Can I take a picture
with you? Will you sign my piece of pizza? Will
you sign my elbow? You know, you just feel like,
whoa man, I have a that's right, I am good
at what I do. Thank you. So those parts feel
like for that period of time, you're like you are it,
(19:30):
and then you go back home and go to Target
and nobody's you know. But then there's also the other
side of it, which is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
There's also two different types. This is over generalizing, of course, y'all,
but there really is almost like feels like there's two
different types of church camp for kids, for high schoolers
in particular, there's sort of your your mid budget camp,
which the one we were telling you all about that
was like somewhere in the southeast Tucky, tennes See something.
(20:01):
This is where a very small nonprofit in that area
that is probably being run by a coalition of youth
pastors who are in that area. They pull their resources
together because they can't afford to organize their own camps individually,
so they pull their money together so that they could
put on the best camp they can for those kids.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But they really got a budget very well to pull
the camp off, which means the churches that are coming
there are not these churches with like huge budgets, huge resources.
Then there's Rich Christian Kids Camp. And this is what
we're talking about right now. Rich Christian Kids Camp be
on a nice beach, be in some place where the kid.
(20:44):
First of all, the kids can actually wear swimwear. I
couldn't even wear swimwear when I was going to youth
group events.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
You better put that T shirt on.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You had to put a T shirt on. I don't
care if they see nipples out. It's a problem for
anybody that got nips. All nips need to be covered up,
all kneecaps whatever. Rich kid Camp means they can afford
to pay you for you to maybe come in one time,
instead of mid to low budget camp has to pay
(21:16):
you to try to convince you to be there for
five days. Rich Kid Camp got enough money for those
kids to be staying not in cabins, but in a hotel,
very nice hotels where they have access to very nice beach.
They have money to pay a certain amount of artists
that will stay there for the week, and then they
have money to pay certain like kind of spotlight artists
that would come, you know and do their thing for
(21:37):
the night. Matt and I in these situations really could
do both. But in Rich Kid Camp, they already had
their people that was going to be there all week.
So we had actually gotten booked to do our show
that we had built together. At the time. We were
really excited about it because the show was going really
well in front of students, you know, and so we
(21:57):
were so excited about it. We were getting and the
way the camp was, we pretty much had like a
certain amount of weeks in the summer that we were
going to have to travel back to that same place
once a week for like several weeks in the summer.
But that meant we pretty much let that be our summer,
you know, like we couldn't hold or take on certain
(22:18):
other gigs during the summer because we had that. Okay,
so we find out maybe two weeks before we were
supposed to go to the gig that they had decided
they didn't want our show anymore. They had decided they
didn't want Matt to DJ at all. They had decided
they had some readings that they wanted me to read
(22:39):
as a narrator for the way that they had changed it,
and we had to go to lunch with them. I
remember this very clear. We had to go to lunch
with them, and it was kind of a weird lunch
because we had the option to walk away, but for
us at the time, it was a lot of money
to walk away from it. It was by then, we're
(23:00):
two weeks ahead of the summer, So all the other
camps that we could have booked, maybe the mid budget
camps that we could have booked, or other rich Christian
kids camps we could have booked, they're already booked. At
two weeks before the summer is about to start.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
What you're going to do?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So they I think to me it sort of felt
like they knew we had the option to say no,
but they also knew they were putting us in a pickle.
They were putting us in a place where like what
could we say? So it was sort of like a
sorry not sorry, lunch, like, sorry, you might feel a
way about this, but if you want to get paid,
(23:35):
this is what we're doing. And we had to stick
with it. And that was miserable.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It was miserable.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It was miserable. I have never been that miserable near
a beach several times a summer. Then I was that summer.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That was a long drive every time, y'all. And it's
not like what they got out of you was like,
oh yeah, you know that worked, because you know, sometimes
you can have creative differences for someone. Sure, sometimes you
can have like an idea of you know, what's going
and with both of us. Even now, whenever someone brings
(24:15):
one an or the other or both of us into
a situation, we realize we're working inside of a lot
of moving pieces. There's a lot of moving pieces, a
lot of people, and so there are a lot of
conversations that we're not a part of. So there may
be something that has been this has kind of been
whittled down, a wheel down, wheeled down, and you may
(24:35):
not see the full picture. But if you trust us
and go with it, and you know, so you know,
we really try to get in and go with the
first because we're working with larger structures that have a
lot of moving parts. So I get it. But in
a lot of these instances where they start toying with
what you do or what I do, it's not like
(24:58):
they ever get the best version of it. In this case,
it turned out to be like, really, they could have
got anybody right that thing, and for us it wasn't fulfilling.
We didn't enjoy it. And for us also, a thing
that I've learned about like being a performance artist, is
(25:19):
that you when you say yes to something, you are
saying yes to somebody else seeing you do that something
and have to do it again. Well, if you're that
miserable doing the thing, probably shouldn't do it that one time,
because if so, somebody would be like, ooh, will you
come do this? And now you've built a career of
(25:39):
doing something that you hate doing, or you didn't spend
the time doing that. I'm kind of preaching to myself
right now, right right yo.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Like, I think it's interesting us talking through this now
because it's like when you look back on it. Matt
and I have been having a lot of conversations around
the term artist versus the term content creator, and I
think what that miserable summer really showed me is how
you know, when we were in church space, and this
(26:11):
is very true of church space as an industry. It
can also be true of corporate space too what I'm
about to say, but we experienced it very particularly in
church space. There was sort of this idea that art
couldn't be important for art's sake, that it had to
be carrying, it had to be a vehicle to carry
(26:33):
something else. So it couldn't be that the art could
be there because it's fun or because it would bring
people enjoyment or bring them joy or put a smile
on it like that couldn't be the point. The point,
you know, especially you're in a religious setting. So the
point is we have a big message we're trying to
get across. So it doesn't matter if your vehicle is
(26:55):
a go kart a tow truck. We have a big,
old message that we want to put on that and
that always has to be the point. And you know,
for those who are religious, that point is important. But
I think here's the part where it got tricky for
a lot of artists in that space is you were
really venturing more into becoming a content creator than being
(27:15):
able to be an artist because you couldn't then just
make stuff because you had a question you wanted to explore,
or because that felt interesting to you, or because that
made you laugh. You always had to be a bit
furrow browed in order to make art over there. And
so that was one instance where we had created something
(27:36):
that we thought was really artful and beautiful, but it
was fun and truthfully it told the message they wanted
to tell in an amazing way. But they went back
to what was the safe zone and they didn't give
us any leeway to work with them as artists. They
put us in the place of sort of feeling like,
(27:58):
you know, we were just we were just works for hire.
We couldn't be collaborators, we couldn't be people that they
could trust as professionals. We just had to be people
that want to do whatever they said we should do.
And so that was a long summer of both of
us having to realize, like, first of all, we want
(28:18):
to be artists, you know, we want to be artists
who who have the opportunity to explore ideas because they
deserve to be explored.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Stories.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, and if there ends up being I think I
think the thing probably where we both are now on
our art is like if there ends up being air
quotes a message there, it's for the reader or the
listener or the watcher to discern that. It's not for
me as the creator to say. And the whole message
of why I tap dance wow is because people need
(28:50):
to know feed are important. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Flip the picture over and it was Jesus face the
whole time.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's like, just dance. Yeah, let the person who's there
as the audience take from it. Trust the audience to
take from it what they should.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, Yeah, that'sting. That is interesting, like dance in humanity
because how many times was someone like unsure about it,
but they went ahead and booked us let us do
our thing. Or even for you, I've seen it with
you as a poet, where they're like, I'm not sure
and they bring you into their corporate setting, sure to
(29:29):
do you do a presentation, tell your to tell your
stories because there is a motivational talk, or want to
kind of get you into this idea. But when they
really allow you to get up there and do your thing.
Every single time, I've watched it time and time again,
whether it's the two of us whether it's just you,
whether it's me by myself. They come back and they go, wow,
(29:52):
I get it now, I see it now, Oh why
you know? And the crowd loves it. It's a win
for everybody because something authentic happened in that room. Something
stories were told. People got what they got from it
because they showed up caring. What they showed up caring.
(30:12):
We didn't make sure and all the pieces of the
And I get it when you're working on a team
and you're putting an event together and you have now
gotten all the way down to your hashtag and the
color and of your logo, and you've gotten down to everything.
The theme of this thing is water. And then so
(30:36):
as a DJ, how many songs about water do you have? Well,
people probably aren't going to walk away being like, man,
that guy sure played a lot of water songs. That
is awesome. It's people walk away. Man, I felt good.
Oh that was great. So it is almost like when
people don't put their hands in it too much, they
actually get the better right end of the deal. They
(31:00):
actually get a better artist, a better you, a better me.
And that's one less thing for them to have to
really think about. Like because if they bring you in.
If they bring me in, somebody brings me in. My
job is that you don't have to stand there and
watch me and make sure I'm gonna show up and
be set up.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Right and be professional.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I'm gonna do all these things, and I'm one
less thing that you have to work. You can sit
back and know that thing you brought me in to
do that's covered.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think Matt and I are both like people who
work with us would say, we're both great collaborators, and
I think that's a strength of ours in the sense
that we can go into a lot of situations, which
is a lot of what happened in church world in particular.
You're going into situations the event has a theme, like
you were saying, like they want you to fit into
that They've got a particular moment they're trying to create,
(31:53):
and like we can be good collaborators with people, but
sometimes that doesn't work to your bis fit as an
artist in a certain way. Because we also both know
artists who would walk in and be like, this is
my shit that I do and this is all I'm doing.
So if you wanted that or this or some other idea,
(32:14):
then book somebody else, but this is me, this is
what I do, and let me do my shit kind
of thing. And I would look at artists and be like, yeah,
I wonder if like that makes you not so easy
to work with. But sometimes it was like we made
ourselves so easy to work with, But then on the
other other hand, we didn't get the respect of the
(32:35):
fact that we are very much professionals at what we're
doing and that you should trust us to come in
and do what we do, and if you wanted something else,
book someone else. So I think for each artist the
answer is somewhere there in the middle. But I feel
like both Matt and I had to learn after these experiences,
Like I feel like we both had to learn how
(32:55):
to how to collaborate with the people who want to
be good collaborates, and how, on the other hand, to say,
this is what I do, so that's if that's what
you want, then book me. But if you want somebody
that you can control or that you can wield in
whatever way, I'm just not your person. And that's okay.
(33:16):
Maybe there's somebody else you know that does that type
of thing. So lots of lessons to learn from terrible
gigs y'all.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And I'll say also that if you are an artist
listening or a maker like you make something, like you,
there is a good that you provide that you sell
that is you, whether it's you doing something, you making something,
you performing something. Get somebody in your life that is
a good friend that will help you build some better practices.
(33:45):
Right because I'm talking about this morning, Ameina was like,
do not send that text. Talk talk it out with me.
Do not reply to that email, talk it out with me.
Do not like why tell me this? Why were you
about to say that? Because when you're an artist or
you make something, you're an entrepreneur. You live and eat
(34:09):
from what you do. And someone comes to you, you go, oh,
you'll pay me money to do this. I would be
happy to do this. And then also if you came
up broke, there's something inside of you, there's something inside
of me that's like, if I don't say yes to you,
and I don't make it as easy as possible for
(34:31):
you to bring me in and do it for as
cheap as possible, you might move on and find somebody cheaper,
find somebody easier to work with, somebody that will say
yes to whatever you're offering and then I may go without,
and I know that's not true. In the end, I've
lived long enough to be like, that's not true. But
you have to you have to find somebody in your
(34:53):
life that will be there with you. I got lucky
I'm married in because Mina. Mina been making sure I
had some business practices. When she first met me, I
was doing everything for free.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
That's true, that's true, and I was like, we got
to put a stop to that. But then the other
thing is you as an artist, you you will jump
into what you do because it's fun to you, like
some of you, some of what you do with like
when you're making music, sometimes you make music just because,
like you want to play in it, you want to
experiment with it, you want to see what it is.
(35:28):
And so I think we give back and forth to
each other that way, because I've had to learn in
a lot of these hard situations how to think like
a business woman. But sometimes I have to remind myself,
you know, when we're creating, to be like, hey, it's
okay to also play an experiment with your art and
make stuff just because right. Yeah, So that's us being
(35:48):
in a partnership that way. Works so great, and that's
why artists should be in community with other people, so
you can have other people to say to you you're
worth more than that, so you can have people to
say to you how they treated you at that events. True,
do not go to another event. Update your contract so
your contract. Don't put you in situations like that. Don't
work with those people on your team if they gonna
(36:09):
book you for things like that. You know, so artists
be in community and do not accept trash treatment. And
if you book artists, try I know it's scary to
you if you used to doing the same thing at
your event, but try to let the artists do what
they do. You would not go in an oar and
(36:29):
stand there behind the surgeon and be like, now, this
is just me thinking about it. I'm not a surgeon,
but this is me thinking about it. I wouldn't cut
it right there. I wouldn't cut it right there, just
me thinking about it. But you do it to poets
and musicians and visual artists. You do it to us
all the time. Stop it, let us do what we do.
We're great at it. See y'all next time. Her with
(37:05):
Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for sol Grafeity
Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network
in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget
to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
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