November 20, 2025 • 55 mins
Step into a powerful, wide ranging conversation with actress and artist Jessica Pimentel, the Brooklyn born Dominicana whose talent and spirit stretch across continents and creative worlds.
Known globally for her seven season role as Maria Ruiz on Orange Is the New Black, Jessica is a three time SAG Award winner, a classically trained musician, and the fierce female vocalist of the heavy metal band Brujeria.
A graduate of NYC’s iconic High School of Performing Arts and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Jessica’s artistry runs deep. She sings, plays violin, guitar, and bass, and brings a level of discipline and soul shaped by her journey as a Tibetan Buddhist, a practice she embraced back in the 90s. In our interview, she opens up about growing up Dominican in Brooklyn, the path that led her from city blocks to global stages, and why Sweden stole her heart as she now splits her life between Sweden and New York.
We get into everything, from her family’s stories and political views to the healing work behind the scenes and why we really shouldn’t eat the mangos. It’s culture, creativity, spirituality, music, and truth told with cariño.
A conversation about identity, legacy, and life en español, straight from a woman who has lived many lives and carries them all with power.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Gracias Come Again a podcast by Honey German. Welcome to
another episode of Gracias Come Again. Today, I'm sitting down
with Jessica Pimente. I like saying the name of Espanol.
How how are you feeling today? You look beautiful?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you? So do you jumped up and hugged you
like a little labrador. Where you are?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's the puppy here.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's adorable.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's adorable.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It works, keep it, put it in the pocket, it works.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Latinas today, I can feel I already feel the energy
is going to be just good.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
When I get with Dominicanas, it just it just feels
like it can never end. Dasha Bolanco was here. We
did a two hour episode.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Did she move in?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
She didn't want to leave?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And you know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
When I when I vibe with the person, then it
just becomes a conversation and then I'm like, what did
you want to promote again? Oh yeah? And it's crazy
because people be writing all the time. When is Dasha
coming back? I'm like, it was one episod, so please
I'll bring it back.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Me and her.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
She's fantastic, so mussy, but I feel like I feel
like that same energy with you, like we're going to
be able to do you know, just talk, get into you. Yeah,
where you grew up, Where you were born? Where were
you born?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I was born in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah, I grew
up in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No place better on that right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Actually, I feel very fortunate that I grew up in
that neighborhood. My parents came here as immigrants and when
they were very young, my mom was twelve ish, you know,
like preteen, not little children, but yeah, enough that you
still hold on to your country, but you also know
that you have to adapt to the new one. So
it's not not when you come here as a little
(01:40):
kid that you kind of don't remember, or you come
as an adult that you're already said warm ways. Right,
So my mom is like she was multiple still, mouldible still.
So I give her so much, you know, praise that
she came at such a young age, letting go of
everything that she knew.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
She came alone or her parents where.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Our whole family came over little by little, basically because
my my mother's oldest sister got married and he had
family here and they moved here. Then my grandmother missed
her too much. You know that when they're tight like that.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It's always one person that comes in. You guys set
up shopping in Brooklyn and then up shot.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In shop in Brooklyn and started bringing each bringing people over,
setting up work, setting up the PaperWorks.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Chat. Want to bring our family with.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Us, yes, Sack, though they didn't want to be split up,
and I don't blame them.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Family is everything, yes, because we.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Are each other's supports system, each other's care system, emergency
rescue system. And everyone you know, came and they found
their dreams and they accomplished their goals. And I'm so
proud of everyone in my family is someone that I
look up to, admire respect. I know.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It's like we all branch out into different things, you know,
like when as an accounting and as a teacher and
others a doctor on the basis because you know, we
got to become something.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Or to die recovered. Right.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And then your dad and your mom met here in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, they met in d Are actually when they were
they were childhood sweethearts. Oh okay, you know they got
married young. Don't tell me twelve, no, no, no, no, okay,
because I would be like, WHOA, this is different when
they were of age to get married. Okay, but they
for me, I think they got married a little young
and they you know, when you're young, you don't know
what you want in life. So unfortunately they when.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You're thirty, you still don't know what you want in life.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Mainline, people are getting married so much later and later
because you know, we're figuring out who we are later
and later. And so they they grew apart and things
were not good. That's fine, goodbye, they had they got
a divorce, and it was for the best. I will
say as an adult not hearing things stories.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Listen, my mother's been married three times.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
There you go. You know that you and I also
commend my mother that she never bad mouthed my dad.
I knew. I didn't know anything about their adult relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That so she didn't tarnish your image.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, she didn't have There was no reason too.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
But it happened.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, it happens a lot of the time, I know,
because people want you to pick a side or something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, and things just that's good. She allowed you to
have your father without you know, poisoning you.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Absolutely, and you know what, I had such a great
support system. Anyway, it sounds so strange. I never felt
like I was missing my father because I had my grandmother,
my aunts, my.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Cousins, yet a tribe.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I had a whole tribe of people, and like the
it was a matriarchal family. So there, you were gonna
win anyway, you were gonna win, so Awela, Mommy diam
So I never felt like the lack of a man
figure in my life. It's like, oh that's extra, you know,
like we could add that later in life, but you
(04:43):
have to first be full yourself and rounded and accomplished
on your own.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
No daddy issues here, no, you know, you know some
people have them, but maybe people like me and you.
It was just like, you know, my father was absentee
in and out, but I never felt like my mother
was just so strong, Mystillauela that I just I just
felt like fulfilled and.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Complete exactly the same. That's how I felt.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
And I know fathers are very important, but you can
be an accomplished and very flilled woman even if your
father is not part of your life.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Exactly, absolutely, and that we don't seek that validation for men.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh no, absolutely, Now you know it's you know, I
hate it when they're like Oh, she got daddy issues.
Why would you, Oh, she's promiscuous as hell, that's daddy issues.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Not necessarily, maybe she's just having a good time exactly.
I don't know how am I to judge.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
They always, you know, they always want to blame it
on that. But I feel like, to me, it didn't
affect me and obviously didn't affect you, because look, look
look at us, look at where we are. Shout out
to them, you know, thanks for making.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Us, Thanks Ma Mo, because you know, it was growing
up my mamula, it always you know, it's just like,
did you ever go to La Well, I actually have
never been. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
The truth?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And I don't know why it's a block I think
that my mother put on me. I think part of
the reason why they left was the political climate was
getting very hot right there in nineteen sixty seven type
that was, and it was getting dangerous. So I feel
like my mother kind of instilled in me to not
(06:26):
go there because it could be dangerous, Like she put
a fear in me kind of. And then it's just
not come up. It's just like not not come up.
I mean, I took my first vacation ever of my
whole life to go someplace where I didn't have to work.
It wasn't for something else. It wasn't because I was
on tour, my husband was on tour. Was because I
(06:47):
wanted to go there and be alone together with my
partner for the first time last year. Well, maybe ther
is going to be on the list. Yeah, because he's
been there more time than me. He's sweetish, She's been
there like eight times.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You know, like, oh, no, no he goes next time.
He can't go alone anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, no, he can't go alone anymore. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
This is all before you met him that he went to.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
His family travels, and that's something that I love. That's
something that I really really admire. Love, love to travel,
go around the world a lot because of what we
do that is not what we you know, what people
know us for or know me for.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So you live, you lived part time in Sweden and
part time in New York.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Pretty much, but pretty much it's since the pandemic we
spent most of the time in Sweden. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know, in the world that we live in now,
with everything electronic, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Where you are. Really, it's like as a Latina from
New York, like I would not even think about.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's the man. He tricked me. He got me to
stay there. Then I had to get a visa because
I was there too long. And then lo and behold,
now you're a resident. And that's how they get you.
You know, they trick you how reverse No no, no, no,
(08:10):
clad well yeah whatever. That was part of it, but
not the entire of it. The way he looks is wonderful.
Part is very good looking, handsome man. I'm very proud
of him.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
How did you meet him?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We met through the music scene. Okay, he's a musician.
He plays in a band called Sugar. He's the drummer
Sugar Sugar and world Famous Sugar. Let's just not be
like a ban No, the world Famous Sugar on your
proud of him award winning one of the greatest drummers
in the world according to Rolling Stone magazine. But that's
(08:45):
not it. What was it was one day he came
up to me and just said, I'm so proud of you.
And we were friends though we had just been acquaintances.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So he knew you as a musician, you knew him
as a musician.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
He knew me before really the show was kind of
out and we talked as friends. I didn't I never
got that vibe from him that he was interested. And
a year passes and we're still kind of friends, chatting
and all that, and uh, one day he says, you know,
I'm so proud of you, and I think we belong
together and we would be a great couple. He just
(09:21):
decided it. We didn't have a date, we didn't go.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Out, we didn't even watching you as that's what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And he was taking notes.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
These notes make.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He had more than that. He's like, I'm just so
proud of you, the way you carry yourself off, everything
you've accomplished since I've known you over the years, and
I would like to take you out to dinner. So
we're in La at a music conference, the music manufacturer
whatever it's called, ma'am. So we're at this music conference
with all our friends from around the world in La.
I live in New York. He lives in Sweden. And
(09:53):
I said, so, what are you gonna do. You're gonna
fly from Sweden to New York to take me to dinner?
And he said yes.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
She said, what's the plan? When are you free?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And I was like, haha, whenever you get here, I'll
be free because you know people, they love to talk,
they love to talk. I'm like, you don't have to
butter me up for like a hookup like this. That's
a lot. He's like, no, that's not what I want.
I think we belong together. And eleven years later, here
we are.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Wow. Yeah, do you feel like that's your soulmate?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, he has all the qualities that I admire. Respect
I had written a list. Actually, I was fed up
at this point in life with dating guys and la right.
You know, at some point you have to say, maybe
it's not that, Maybe it's me. I keep picking the
wrong one.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Don't do that the second arrow. They shoot the first one,
then you shoot the second.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I keep picking the wrong one. I'm meeting people like
why am I going anywhere? So the first thing I wrote,
he must come to me. You know, he must have
a to come to me. He has to have a
great relationship with his family, especially his mother.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
He has to.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
He has to and this sounds really bad, but be
shallow and be real with yourself. He must make as
much or more than me. He must be as successful
or more successful than me. Because a lot of the
problems I had in my relationships were with jealousy, not
necessarily of people looking at you, but jealousy of your success.
(11:20):
And they would try to sabotage when you got a
part that took you out of the country. They got
jealous when you got to do a red carpet and
would sabotage that night. Somehow, every red carpet, every opening
of a play, every closing night of a play, every premiere,
every fashion somehow, every time I had one of these things,
the person I was with would find a way to
(11:41):
fuck it up, just throw it up. They would fuck
it up right, And I'm like, how could this possibly
be that there's always a family emergency or a fight
or a screaming something, or you know, like the building's
on fire, or my dress is ripped, or I can't
or I can't drive you there. You're gonna have to
take the train. Take the train, and I'm gonna Oscar
de la Renta. I'm like on the train like in
(12:02):
Oscar Lorna because he's like, I don't feel like it
driving it. So it's like it's someone who's a team.
I mean, you want someone who's a teammate, a partner,
but so who also has their own thing that they
love and excel at. So they're not worried about what
you're doing because it's not going to take away from
what they're doing. Because sometimes the people who are insecure
(12:26):
feel like every time you have a success it takes
away from them, it takes you away from them, or
you might wake up and realize that they're not good
enough for you and you might leave them. So they're
worried about you leaving them, so they keep making you insecure.
They keep trying to point out your flaws, they keep
trying to hold you back, make you feel guilty. Yeah,
(12:47):
so I say, you know what, I'm not using it.
Here's the list of what I need. Like any job interview,
if you don't meet the criteria, you don't get the
coffee date a not even coffee.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
So you went through it and you're.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
He took that list, He ate it through it like
he was like, this is all you want because I
got it all.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
As I'm so happy for you, man, because honestly, having
a strong partner and a partner that is supportive and
not jealous or sabotaging you and your success and your happiness.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's top of the list. Yes, he's top of the list.
Only encourages me. He only wants me to do the
best I can. He's always supportive, number one cheerleader. If
I come out, I want to walk down the street
in bikini n I's like you go, mommy, wait a
pink right. He's like, Okay, you're gonna wear that. Okay,
you do, you wear what you want, You do what
(13:37):
you want, Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So happy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, he's fantastic because I've been in relationships where you
come out and a guy will be like, oh, you
can't wear that, that's too much attention Latino or no,
he wasn't Latino. But we walked like a block and
he's like, too many people are looking at you. You
have to change in New York. In New York.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and it's like nobody's looking at nobody in New York.
I know that was deep because you know we can wait.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Whatever was his own brain, Yeah, imagine because you could
be naked in New York and naked.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Just don't touch me, touch me ill exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So that's their own insecurity that they project on you,
and then you start to carry it. And this was
unfortunately my you know, late teens, mid twenties that that happened.
So it takes a while to get yourself out of
that bunk of believing the stupid shit they tell you
because it's not true.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
At that age, you're so impressionable, and you start to
believe like this is how it is and this is
the truth.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, and you start to think, well, this is what
love is, right, we got a good times and fan
times hurts. No, it doesn't, No, it doesn't. No. It
makes you stronger and and happier and more relaxed.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It doesn't trigger your nervous system exactly. Please can we
talk about that?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, just fall asleep in that arm pit, and you know,
right now on edge with the person you love. You know,
shouldn't be walking on his eggshells with some I mean
I had somewhat in my life that when my phone
would ring, I would get nervous because I didn't know
who was calling, and he would check my phone, oh
you know. And it got to a point where I
stopped talking to any male friends, male relatives, no one,
(15:22):
and then the girls even you know. Then it was like,
will you talk to Susie too much? Why he talked
to Susie so much now. Then he started cutting out
the girls, and then then it got to a point
where the only two people that were calling were my
mom and my agent. And one day he said, how
do I know that's your mom calling? He says mom
on the phone, and I was like, what do you mean?
Says mom. He's like, you could have put anybody's name there,
and I was like, damn, I never even thought of that,
(15:44):
Like it.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I want to buy him right now.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I thought that never ever even crossed my mind because
I don't think that way. And I'm like, let me
see your phone. What you got on there? Your mom?
The numbers match here?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
If you over here thinking I'm doing that. I never
even thought of that.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It isn't that ridiculous, It is I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That kind of the thought doesn't even cross your mind.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I'd be like hat guy I met downstairs. That's how
I don't know what to tell exactly. You know, you
want to know who is called? What's called?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'm so happy, you know you're in a good space
and being happy, and your relationship is so important as
a creative Yes, you can't create if you're unhappy. Yes,
how can you go on stage if you just had
a fight with someone, like, you can't really deliver your
best performance if you just had to fight backstage with someone, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
But that's when I think of like the early red
carpets and stuff, and not just me, but a lot
of women that I have worked with. I know, you know, oh,
I know we're here smiling people smiling away, all glamored
up and not knowing that you know, this one got
locked out of her house by the boyfriend the other day,
or this one I got left at the side of
the b que by her boyfriend, or you know, like.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
You know, you bring that up. And when Dasha was here,
she shared that she was being abused at home while
she was on Oranges the New Black, and she was
still operating the way that she needed to operate. Like,
imagine being physically abused and then having to go to
red car I can't picture it. I can't just I.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Can't compartmentalize, and you dissociate and you just make the
two things not be the same thing. And that's I
think a lot of us function that way, especially artists.
A lot of us have been through a lot already,
and we need to be able to use that in
a way that it is positive and helpful that we
can channel into our art and make it through the
(17:34):
day as a functioning human being. We need to be
able to close those doors.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
There's no I'm going to stay in bed all day
when you have to be down sat time for that.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
No, there is none.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
And you know, it's something that a lot of people
don't talk about. And we see you all on red
carpets and at the SAG Award in with your awards
and with your gowns, and we can't imagine that you're
going through what you're going through, whether it be physical, verbal, emotional,
because there's a lot of different forms of abuse. People
feel like, oh, he doesn't hit me, he doesn't abuse me.
Yelling at you is abusing you, Manipulating you is There's
(18:07):
so many different ways you know that you can be abused,
and we still have to show up and be our
best selves.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Absolutely, and heartbreak, and still the show must go on.
You know, we have things that a person would take
the day off for if some a family member dies
or your friend passes, or someone's in the hospital, we
still have to go. We can't like, oh, sorry, three
hundred people, six hundred people, a thousand people that are
making this machine. Gul my friend died. You know, they
don't care, and you better look good and you have
(18:33):
to look while doing it and let those tears fall
to the side.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
You better not mess up those lashes.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Like crying. You know, trust me, I feel you, you know,
and you're just wait till you have the time to cry.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And sometimes you know, I can finally go home and
cry now.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yep. So that's how it is.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Sad as that, but you know, the show must go on.
You're in show business. You understand. It's just like, listen,
there's no crying in baseball.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
No, exactly, there's no crying in baseball.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, there's no crime unless you're on set, right, Unless you're.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
On set, that's when it's really hard. You're like cry cry,
punking out nose hairs. You're like house, that's gonna work.
I cried all day yesterday. I have no tears left.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Orange is a new black now, you know now that
we mentioned Dasha, Dasha was here, Elizabeth Rodriguez was here
after you. That's the last that's the last prob. Yeah,
it's all four of you. I wanted to talk to
because you know it just that show, the way it
put Latina's in the forefront. Finally, we stole the show.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
We stole the show.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I don't care, o't care. You guys are so amazing
on this show in so many seasons, and the way
that it's kind of like still so relevant today.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It is so strange that I guess Netflix had done
like a resurgence of it because now I'm seeing kids
that were definitely not old enough to watch it when
it came out coming up to me still Maria in Sweden,
you know, like all over the world, Like Maria, I
was like, you're not old enough to how You're like, Hi, yeah,
(20:05):
You're like, but you weren't. Oh, you're watching it for
the first time now, ten years after we more than
ten years after we started. I mean it was twenty
nineteen was the last chapter that we released. So you're
thinking now sixty years after we finished, now you're starting.
It's like this is going to live forever.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's not going a way because the topics are still relevant.
Unfortunately Doue relevant at times, and at the end of
the day, it's about the human condition, right, and we
had to show that deeply honestly, truthfully, to the best
of our abilities. And unfortunately people we don't change. We
keep going the same cycles over and over and over,
(20:46):
trapped in the same cycles, especially with generational you know,
I don't want to call them curses, but things that
people pass now yeah, yeah, But the way that Orange
is the new black, you know, humanize the women in jail,
that's what was special about it, you know, because we
understand the you know, incarceration black and brown women, white
women too. But it's just like, this is what happened,
(21:06):
this is this is the reality of who she truly is,
Like it wasn't this is her crime and it stops there,
right because that would have been such as the service
to the whole, you know, show well, you see the
crimes that were committed, and I do that in air quotes.
Some things were just so stupid. But once you get
in the system, you're just like falling, sliding down, slipping around,
(21:27):
and you can't get out. It's meant it's stacked against you, you.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Know, because you think about let's say, let's say with
Seleni's character, you know what I'm saying, like, what was
she doing? What was she doing? The food stamps me.
You know what I'm saying. That happens every single day.
But to ruin a mom's life forever and ever over
something a white collar crime that a white man would
probably just get.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
A fine and they would go home to his three
girlfriends and whatever. Then life goes on and life goes on.
No would even bad in eye. It's like, oh, you
got mixed up in a lot of oh so beneath you,
Like that's what they would think. They wouldn't even.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That crime is not even worth, not.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Even worthy of your your presence, how dev I can't
believe it. Pay the fine and I'll see what is
Okay theater, Okay, theater.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love this. You just you know, you just went
right into character and I'm here for it now. Was
Orange your first It was your breakout role.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, breakout role, but by no means my first role. Okay,
I started acting in junior high. Well, I saw you
went to perform and went to LaGuardia. Uh. In LaGuardia,
I would say that we received professional training. So and
they said, listen, if you want to go out into
the world, you're ready. But if you want to keep training,
you can get into whatever school you choose, you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Know, was it always acting for you?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
No, it started off as music. I started off as
a classical violinist.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I saw that you play the violin. Yeah, you play
the guitar, Yeah, play the bass, yeah, your vocalist. Yeah,
you're an actress. Yes, I'm like Jesus Christ, I said,
I need to step up.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I'm an only child. We're still friends.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Is that what happens?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's like a lot of time alone.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
No, I think my mom said.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Mom said no, the opposite, She's like, this is your instrument,
don't do anything else.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Which one was it the violin?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
But I think what it was is being an only
child living in New York where we were not really
allowed to roam the streets where I was from, or
not really where I was from. That's not it. It's uh,
my family was not that kind of family that lets
your kids go roam the streets. That's what I want, right,
because you get out of school, you go up stairs,
you lock the door, you don't homework, and that's it exactly.
(23:36):
So it wasn't because it was a dangerous thing. It's
like you're just not supposed to be out in the streets.
It's dangerous world. Is dangerous out there. No no no
in the house. And uh and I'm happy for that
because I got to explore my imagination. I had, you know,
(23:59):
imaginary SCENEARI I watched a lot of PBS, a lot
of Channel thirteen, so I got to learn everything. I
got to read all the time. My mom was a
young mom, so we would have little dance parties or
carry out. Oh yeah, we had a lot of fun
growing up. Dance party, karaoke party, all about music. And
then was introduced to the violin and by some look
of the luck, right, the miracle of how things work.
(24:22):
My next door neighbor was a concert violinist.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, So he started hearing these terrible sounds next door.
You're just screeching yes when you're starting, and he's like,
let me help this out for real. Yeah, I'm gonna
taught me how to tune the violin and how to
hold it and would give me a little lessons once
in a while in Brooklyn or no, he's Arab Italian
(24:46):
because it's Brooklyn. We're all missed. So you know, everybody something,
say something.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm just trying to put a face to who this
man was. That went and said, hold on, somebody's in
this struggling families.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Were friends, were like a kid, they had kids about
the same age. He was a little bit older. Autmann
Albanies was his name, and uh and uh. But then
he moved away. He grew up and he moved away
and uh. I started just playing on my own by ear.
And there was a record store that would throw out
records every Sunday that people were not buying and for
the yeah, final records and for the most part they
(25:17):
were going to be classical records. So I started started
learning how to play this on my own by ear.
And then they started giving after school program because single mom,
you know, put you in the after school program. And
there was a music program and there was the Brownies.
And I went to the music program and I was
like so bored, so I sneaked across the hallway to
the Brownies. And then somebody ratted me out and said
(25:40):
that I wasn't taking music classes, that I was doing
the Brownies thing, because I was like, ooh, arthen Crafts,
this is so fun. I don't think I was six
or seven, six six years old, sad on my own,
and I got in trouble. Of course, my mom came
down to this school. I said, I already know how
to play violin. You know this. It was like, and
they're like, okay, play this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I
(26:02):
played a Twinkle Twinkle little Star, killed it. Yeah, And
then I play this other thing. I don't know what
it was. Merrily we roll along, Okay, same song. And
then I was like, I can play the mendelsn Concerto
in E minor. And they're like what I said, I
like to play the Mendelssohn Concerto and E minor. Thank
you very much, I'll play the first movement for you.
I'm not saying it was good. Let's let's be let's
(26:23):
be exact there. But I went for it. And they
brought the director of the Rooster School of Music, who
had sponsored that after school program, to the school to
hear me play. And I got a full scholarship to
the Ruster School Music. Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
She a prodigy.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I started taking third taking lessons there several times a week,
and then also chamber music, and then eventually it would
lead me to orchestra and being a concertmaster of the
New York Youth Carnegie Carnegie multiple times. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That listen. If you're listening from anywhere outside of New York,
that is the venue to play.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That is prestigious, very very prestigious.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So I just been there, yeah, and I was like, wow,
this is amazing Queen.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
As you know, I was not here. It was so
many you were Sweden.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
She's coming to the Bronx in October.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Okay, I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
You'll be here. Yes, we're going. I met bet to
get a little tickets. Yes, no person, no person, Lemon College,
make your calls.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
But that's one of those women I admire so much,
even if it's not a style of music that I play,
it's her confidence, her energy, her swag, her journey, her.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
She stood among the men when reggae.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And that's how I feel in metal right it's a
male dominated, white male dominated for the most can.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Metal because it was just Jessica actress, you know what
I'm saying. But then when I got digging deep and
I was like, what metal?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Have you metal?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Hey? How did this talk to me? Talk to me?
How did this happen?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
This is one of those I wish I had a
time machine moments in your life. Rudier was not my
first band by any means.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I just love the name. I gravitated to it immediately.
I can only imagine how this even happened.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Uh late great Bruco and Peach, who both sadly passed
away last year, or to main singers and songwriters passed
away last year for different causes very close to each other.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
It's hard for me to talk about it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I had first heard Burhidiya exactly the way you're supposed
to first hear Buridia is a tape of a tape
that sounds terrible and you don't know what it is.
And the thing is, it was like a fantasy band
where they made this backstory of some Narcos four floor
like right, it was kind of like a modern day
(28:48):
I don't like an not an opera, but a modern
day folklore band where everyone had a character and you
didn't know who was in the band. Everybody had a mask,
everybody had an alias, and the tape.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Just as ever, you don't know what's going to happen when.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know what is and you put it on and
it sounds like it was recorded in a cave. You know.
With my first sony like it's so heavy. It's like,
oh no, these guys being business.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
You know, the portal is about to open up, the portals.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
About to open it up, and they're like, how do
you sneak you know, how do you sneak people into
the country in the back of a tru I mean
the it's and it's all in Spanish, which is great
because it's like, you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
There's it's a secret.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, it was really secret. And over the years it
developed into it really grew into this strange, amazing phenomenon
where they got the best players from every band of
all around the world in metal to assume aliases and
identities and join the band with people knowing because before
(29:58):
so you, you and everybody had their face covered. You
didn't know what version you were gonna get of the band.
Sometimes there are six of them, sometimes there's ten of them.
Sometimes there's a Bruca, sometimes there's not a bruca. There
was there were two previous CRUs Yeah, it was fluid,
and also who was free, who needed money, who was
who had the visa because people didn't have Yeah, who
(30:18):
didn't have the visa? Who was close? Whose equipment was working? Yeah,
who was on tour. And then uh then I I
mean I saw them for the first time at Webster Hall.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I believe it was twenty ten, another iconic.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So Webster Hall, another iconic venue, and I couldn't believe
that I was actually seeing them in midmos, that I
was in the balcony. I ran into the backstage area
through the dressing room and I jumped on the stage
and I grabbed the microphone and I sang, and it
(30:59):
was like, what it's like. I cemented it that.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Day that I'm part of this.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I couldn't even just watch anymore. I'm like, I need
to be a part of this. It's like, oh, so fierce,
so fierce and crazy and saying. And that was like
my first formal introduction to them. And then a few years.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Later that was a takeover girl.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I was. I just couldn't control myself. I'm very bad
at shows. I'm very bad at shows. I have no
self control. You know how people just go to shows
and they just that they're cool. I have none of
that in my body. I'm pretty calm now, but if
there's a performer that I like, I cannot I cannot not.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I feel because you feel music I feel music.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I love it. I love as people can hear it.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, some people live it like it just goes through
your body. And that's probably the way you take music absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And as a performer, you love to see when someone
is enjoying your work. So I feel like I owe
it to them, you know, to just run up and sitting.
No no, no no. But then we met you years later,
twenty sixteen, and I'll never forget. They're playing a Grammarcy Theater,
another theater that I love, iconic theater, and I just
come off set. I was there for eighteen hours that day,
(32:10):
and I was like, there's no way that I'm going
to miss in this venue, which is such a close,
intimate venue, I'm gonna miss this, No way I'm going
to miss this. And I got to meet everyone after
the show and there was a Bruka previous it wasn't
working out with them, and then he just just tapped
me and said, how do you feel about being the
(32:32):
new Bruka? And I was like, uh hold on, let
me call thirteen year old me for a sec.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
And you when do I start?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
When do I start? Sure? And with no rehearsal, I
got my set list no rehearsal. I showed up that
day with outfit changes. I just had one sound check
of one song that I was going to sing and
half a song and that was it and they and
they're like, okay, eight o'clock showtime, let's see you see there. Yeah,
it was. It was wonderful because it was for the
(33:04):
first time, not for the first time, but the way
Brujo wanted to depict. The women in his life were
always strong, confident, uh feminists. They're feminists. So I felt
like I was finally doing something like really in your face,
(33:26):
not so pretty, not so likable, necessarily agro, you know,
but extremely feminists without being in describe the words. It
was just something that's that meant so much to me
to be able to be a part of that which
sometimes you know, they got to always check that temperature
with the machismo in the room, so that always broke
(33:47):
down that machismo because the woman, the women would come
out with a machete and tell everybody to calm down
just like them and control them. And you have them
and you're like, yes, I'm strong too, mother.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's why I run my life. Mm hm, So I
don't let im me tell it, and I feel, you know,
because with us, it's like they want us to be
certain ways, and we're not always allowed to be, you know,
as strong and as aggressive and you know, as we
want to be in the spaces that we occupy, because
it's not a lady like exactly, and I don't want
(34:25):
to live like that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean, that's one of the things that I was
worried about, actually that the previous Blue House I used
to call her the heavy metal Charro, and she always
had a bosta and she was always s but she
was always very aggressive, but she was always dressed in
ultra feminine, sexy, sexy clothes. So I brought some outfits
like that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Are we talking like Jenny ribera kind of sort of
like those Mexican goals?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, a little bit of that. She was all,
you know, she's some work done. She was not afraid
I won't get these days. But she was still she
was still very aggressive on stage, but the way she
presented herself with ultra feminine, ultra sexy like that makes
boys scared sexy kind of ultra. So when I brought
consumes like that that day, he said, no, I want
(35:08):
you covered from head to toe.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
They wanted more like a militant that already.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
She did that, that's her legacy. But that's not you.
That's not your style. And I know that, and you
should show the girls that the you don't have to
be that. You can be strong, you can be covered
and still be sexy and fine.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Af You know I say that all the time. You know,
when I see people with two little clothing, I'm like,
you can be covered from head to toe and be
the sexiest.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Bitch in the room. Yes, trust your energy.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
It's how you carry yourself. Absolutely, And like I tell
my sister all the time, men have actual vision. They
can see right through whatever. Let's see a nune and
be like she got fat ass on the.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's men, boys, But that's.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Men for you.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You don't have to Less is not always more, No,
absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I'm so proud of man, like talking to you, like
I read it all and I was watching the videos
and everything, but now talking to you and you know,
just seeing you know how important it is for you
to push through that energy. It makes me even more
proud because especially in that space of you know, metal,
we were talking behind the scenes, how it is very
Latino but in mainstream America we're stripped of that part
(36:22):
of our identity.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Mexico when you go to Mexico, yeah, talk to me,
talk to me about the vibe out there, Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
My goodness, I mean Central South America in general for metal,
it's like it's like nothing else, like a homecoming. It's
it's like a homecoming. Absolutely when we would go down there,
the towns would shut down. A wait, I would roast
a pig, you know, like that, there would be a
whole house party. They'd close the restaurants down so we
would have a place to be, and just because they're
(36:52):
just a I think part of it is the folklore
has stuck so well for all those years that it's
like your very own superhero Arrows are here. Yeah. So
it's like being fans of the storyline, but then also
being fans of the very political, extremely political content of
our music. Ruho was always very political. He was very honest.
(37:19):
He wrote about, you know, all the things that let's say,
white Hollywood would spin on us anyway. He said, oh,
why don't you get it from our side of the story.
Then you want to talk about, you know, not a
tra Affricos come from this side. Now, come come here,
let me tell you a story from this side. What
it works like. You want to talk about, you know,
illegal immigration, border crossing. Let me tell you the border
(37:42):
crossing from our side, where we're praying that we don't
die on the way over. You got to hear it. Yeah,
we do it. But here's our side. Watch this, and
he was he never held back with his lyrics, he
never held back with the content. I mean to the
point where we've gotten a lot of backlash for things.
And unfortunately, now in the day and age of internet,
you know everything, you can't hide anything. Yeah. And also
(38:05):
it's satire a lot of the times it's very satirical
and not everyone. It's like we're losing our our sense
of knowing when something is satire now because of the
world we live in, the climate we live in, people
wake up every day and say did this really happen?
Or is this? Did I dream this? Or is this
really happening right now?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
And now you interject AI and it's like, oh my god,
forget about it.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I feel so bad for I'm finding you know, people
that are a little bit older, they can't really tell
and it's hard for me to tell my mom is
watching video. I'm like, mom, that's not right, real artificial.
Like I was like, please, my mom sent me a
video of Endrique Esia singing the psalms. I'm like, mom,
that is not him and he would not sing that.
(38:50):
But I'm glad you like it. It sounds good.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Now, Yeah, that AI and and music, AI and acting, Like,
what are your thoughts on that? The way it's you know,
like they're like, oh, now they're making AI artists.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I mean it's terrifying to some degree as a creative.
As a creative, yes, what they can do with our images.
That's why we have our unions like Screen Actors Guild,
laugh Tractors Equity, things like that to make sure that
our images are used the way we want them to
be used, and that if they're used without our presence,
(39:25):
that we still get paid for it.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
As because there's.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Been things that I was like, oh, I never post
for that, but there I am. I don't remember that. Yeah,
they just can digitally manipulate for I mean, we already
have photoshop, right, sure, so that's nothing new. But they
can make you Now, they can make you talk and
they have the fake AI version of you selling cookies.
I don't know whatever it could be, so you have
to really be vigilant with that. But also what I
(39:50):
noticed is there's no AI is going to be able
to tap into human emotion, inflection, and heart. So when
you have those AI. For example, I've been doing audiobooks.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I know, I saw that congratulations on your nomination.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Thank you, thank you so much. But the books also
come in the you know, the assisted reader that it's
just the computer reading to you.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I can't do it. I'm sorry, I cannot do it. Yeah,
so if I need your voice.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Thank you, thank you nominated.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
No A, I will never have a soul, you know.
And I was at an event, you know, with Jay
Shetty on Friday, and we talked about AI, and he said,
it'll never be human, it'll never feel.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
It doesn't know when to stop. It doesn't know when
the pauses happen because your heart is breaking, It doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
The voice can't quiver. The voice just stays like this.
I can't And you know, with audiobooks, I'm weird, like
if I don't like.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
The voice, Oh no, that's for everyone.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That's it. I'm done. Bye, I can't listen to this book,
And don't you write an autobiography and hire somebody else
to do your voice, because I'm going to be so
mad at you. And I'm talking just in general, like
if I know you, you know, shout out Angie Martinez.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
She Angie.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I know she did her book and I watched her
narrate her book daily for weeks, and I was just like,
she's a g because you know Mahina. So Angie does
an audiobook and hire somebody else will do it for her.
There's no point, none at all. And anybody who does
their life story and autobiography, I demand that you use
your world. I don't care how long it takes. I
(41:25):
don't care how many hours, lot of pressure it is,
but I need it. I need it. I'm a I'm
an audio person. You know what visual is different. You know,
you have all your distractions. You know, when somebody's gonna
be watching this, they're gonna be like, oh, look at
her bag and look at her water, honey, and take
the label off, and they're gonna be talking about you know.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But when you listen, it's just like it goes right
to your host. Yes, it makes you make your own
pictures exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Remember that imagination reading when you're little.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Oh my god, the whole thing was alive all around you.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And now we get it with a voice. I love
audio works. I am a book person and I love authors,
and I love that you're doing that. It's crazy. It's
what is called audible.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Audible.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, they're in Jersey and I used to always see
the vands. They would transport the people, and I used
to be like, I can work there and I could
just narrate books. You can have a beautiful I used
to say it all the time. And after that. That
was a long time ago, probably like ten years ago.
And now it's such a big thing.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Because people realize the convenience of it. You can have
it anywhere you want. You can you can do it
when you're getting ready in the morning or when you're driving,
or you could do it doing workouts.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
That workout or sometimes your job was paying you.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
You could be listening to a book or doing your workout.
You know, like if you don't feel like listening to
music that day, sometimes you're taking just taking a story in.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know, how did that happen for you? Like you
end up I'm narrating.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
It's funny. I think I was just approached many years ago.
Did you you know those books that you get at
the bottom of the subway five dollars from those gangster books.
I started with those and I loved it and I
loved it, but I didn't I had no.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
You did it for an author, or you did it
for like a printed for.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
A printing house, And I love doing it, but I
wasn't like quite ready yet. I didn't really understand the
nuances yet. It's it's very tedious. It requires a lot
of concentration. You have to prepare for the story because
stories twist and turn so they can't catch you. And
you're like, and then he showed up with a knife.
You can be You have to know the story very well,
(43:26):
so you have to.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Prepare another craft that you have your role right.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You have to prepare that, and you have to take
care of your body, be hydrated, beasts, have your rest,
have your right clothes on. And also when you have
multiple characters in a book, so my last audio.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Books, realize that you would have to voice all the people.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, you voiced all the people. So my last book
was Anita Monte Laf's last and we were three main
characters because were there were three main characters. But as
you're talking as one character, another character will come in.
But I had to keep track of my characters. That
would be like this your voices. I told Jack not
to come here, but I told her not to be here.
(44:07):
But I mean, it's still you. You're not trying to
vo it's like a cartoon, but you have to make.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Some conflictions and everything is like your.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Tone accents changed.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Still, yeah, girl, do's have a multiple personalities. Kudos to you.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I don't think that could be give me a biography, Okay,
I want one person that's like in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
That but that's it. That's it in the world. You
know now that you talk about you know, you have
to be in the right mood and you know, Buddhism,
that's your thing. Yeah, I love that. I'd love that,
you know, aside from and don't judge me, well, aside
from the Tina Turner story, I've never you know, like
experienced or met anyone you know who is into Buddhism.
(44:51):
But and you've been practicing for a long time now. Yeah,
since I was a teenager basically, no, I read the nineties,
I'm like, wait, but she's so young.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yes, And since I was a teenager, I was always
a very spiritual kid my whole life. I mean, I
grew up in the church and all that, and a
good church, not a friar brimstone type church, and a
good Jesus Loves you church, And I think there got
to be a point where I started to question things
and say, but why does all this bad stuff keep happening?
And there was no answer there other than, you know,
(45:33):
God's testing. I'm like, but God made me? Why God
have to test me? I don't want to be We're
just not clicking for me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Math was mathing when it came to the Bible exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Things were just not clicking for me. And then the
people who were supposed to be the spiritual people were
not doing the right things in church, let's just say that.
So their behavior also made me question why, why what
were we doing? What are we doing here? My mom
had this book, you know, on her shelf, Religions of
the World, the college class that she took, you know,
(46:03):
back in the day, and that book starts with, you know, animism.
It starts with the big one Christianity, Judaism. I had
a lot of Jewish friends. I went to the temple
a lot with them. I helped them study there for
their bar mitzvahs, you know, And I'm like, that's kind
of the same thing. But the Jesus thing, Like the
the structure, the Abrahamic structure was the same. Then was Animism,
(46:24):
which was basically Native American religion. So we know in
our culture a lot of words that we use, a
lot of traditions that we have, the medicines our grandma
gave us that comes from them, the taino arawog az
tech may en whatever wherever you're from, your people, our ancestors.
So I felt like that was a piece of it,
to get back in touch with that essence, because the
(46:48):
you know, that conquering mentality, that conquested mentality, wants you
to shun away from that. That's bad, that that's evil somehow,
but it's but it's not, it's good. It's from the
from the.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
It's our roots, man, and we have to tap it.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
So we denied our own roots of where we come from,
as if we didn't have our own experience for millions
and millions of years, and also mixed with how mixed
we are, especially in the Caribbean, how all those things
come together spiritually, because how can we say that one
spiritual world is different than another. But I kept exploring that,
and then I was in the hardcore scene, and a
(47:25):
big part of the hardcore scene was a hard Christiana scene,
and I went to their temples and I'm like, this
is kind of closer, though, but it wasn't quite it
for me, and I started reading the daudey Ching and
the dowdey Ching completely kind of eliminates esoteric things from
the picture. It says, if you do a B will happen.
One plus one is two, the plus two is four.
(47:47):
If you want four, you know how you do it
very illogical. So it's for the first time it wasn't
something in the sky that I couldn't see or speak
of waiting to smite me for being bad. It was
just it was just like logical behavior, cause and effect, result, consequence.
And it really spoke to me in the sense that
(48:08):
it felt like everything was up to me in my
hands to some degree. If I'm suffering, it's my fault
to some degree. And I do have control over things
and things change. And while I was reading this in
high school, we had to read the story of Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse, which is basically it's a novel, but
it talks a little bit about Buddhism and this guy
(48:31):
that's near the Buddha in his life and he goes
through a spiritual journey. He starts off too hard, then
it goes all the way left, and then all the
way right, and somewhere in the middle was the right
place for him. And then there's someone else in his
story going all the way with this direction, all the
way and we have to remember that our paths are
all different. Oh yeah, and then extreme is not always
(48:51):
the case. Extreme this or that is not always helpful either.
And so from that point on, my teacher is like, oh,
you really compare this a lot to Daoism. Maybe you
should look into Buddhism. I was like, I'm not a Buddhism,
a Daoism. But the next chapter in our mom's book
was Buddhism, and there's the famous statue of emaciated Buddha
(49:12):
when he had gone all the way too far to
self denial and hurting himself and not eating and not
breathing too far, and I was like, oh, this is
not for me. I like food, I like to eat.
I don't like this. But then I read something called
the dependent origination. How one thing leads to another, another
(49:33):
thing leads to another, and this is how we get here.
But if you can cut that first root, you can
end your suffering. And it just made me cry because
it was an answer. Finally, why do we suffer? Because
our own minds. We create this desire, We have this anger,
we have this ignorance, we have hate. We don't understand
how the world works. We always want more. We're never
(49:56):
satisfy with what we have. We hate what we don't understand,
repulsed by things. So all these factors that are in us,
like almost inherently, and you realize that you some people
say karma, right, but it's really everything you say and
think and do causes everything that Your life is.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Like a boomerang.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Everything you say and think and do creates the world
that you have. That's it, that's it. You're in control
of your own destiny. Yeah, So think about what you say,
think about what you do, think about how you react,
think about what you're putting out there, think about what
you're taking in there when you start getting jealous, something
(50:46):
like jealousy, you know, it's like money. I'm me most
important person. Everyone's the most important person to themselves. Main
character syndrome exactly, exactly, and also the quite opposite, the
self deprecation, the imposter syndrome stuff. That's also something that
you do to yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
That we create all mental, all mental, and that.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Our our inner state mental state projects onto the how
we see the world. So depending on how your mind is,
that's how you're going to see the world. Are you
going to only see problems? Are you going to see
solutions or opportunities? Are you going to see jealousy for
someone getting an award? Are you going to say did
it good for her? I can't believe when you rejoice
(51:32):
on other people's happiness and their success as if it
were your own, then you'll you'll always be happy.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
It's like you're attracting what you're putting out.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, and that's why you're seeing it that way, you know,
because that could be you if you want that, sure,
just keep keep to yourself, keep happy, keep your focus
on remembering that we're our purpose here is to be
happy and to make other people happy and focus on others.
When you folks on others, you're never going to be
(52:02):
worried about what you don't have, what you don't like,
what somebody did to you.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Oh no, you found a secret. You don't tap into
some other shit that I want from myself.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Buddha found it twenty five hundred years ago, The Doctor
of the Mind. You know, I'm in science.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
I need to get out the dog. No offense.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
You are the light, be the light.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I love that. What are you working on right now?
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Oh? Right now, I'm working on a project with the
Seven Sons music. There are modern classical quartets that mixes
extreme metal programming composition but with strings. So I'm working
on that. We have three of the best drummers in
the world. I can't reveal who they are yet, on that.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Three are the best drummers in the world.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, three, well, three of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
So okay, well, you know you're my favorite or your favorite.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
And it's the It's based on the Tibetan Book of
the Dead of Liberation through hearing what happens as you
die when you die, you know, nice light comedy pop
chart summerhead of the Year.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
That are you going to be going on tour or
are you working on the project or what are you
doing with them?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
No, tour first. Right now, we're just working on the
arrangement and getting the right editing and everything done for that,
because it's a pretty big undertaking when you have an
orchestra and how do you record?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
How do you record this?
Speaker 2 (53:24):
We are trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
In my mind, I'm like, what.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Because it's so because it's such a mishmash of the
two different styles. Someone that's great at recording metal may
not be great at recording classical and vice versa. We
have I can say we have Rachel Barton Pine, one
of the best, if not the best, classical violinist in
the world. Wow, there's a cadenza there that will break
your heart. And that's just with her violin. She'll make
(53:47):
you cry.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
I'm excited for he Yes, it's.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
It's like nothing I've ever done before.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
I'm going to make sure we're connected to sucking experiences.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yes, hopefully we'll be doing it live a Lincoln Center
or something like I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, you have to don't play with me. I don't
play with me in your own section.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Nah, man, I'm super proud of you. I love this conversation.
This conversation touched in areas and ways that I feel
like after forty episodes we haven't touched.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Wow. Thank well. I'm honored to be a part of this.
I'm so happy and surprised. You know that you asked me,
and I'm just so proud that you are amplifying our
voices and our stories and we are at a time,
especially now, that we really need it. And I hope
someone out there is inspired, you know, gets inspired and
learn something new, or goes for their dreams, their goals
(54:35):
and knowing that they're not alone in this.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
You know, this is my purpose right now.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yes, and so fulfilling it and so thank you for
letting me be a small part of it.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
You're a big part of it. I love you. I'm
glad that we met, and you know, I want to
wish you good luck on everything that you're working on.
I'm going to make sure we're connected. And thank you
for bringing in, you know, such amazing and positive energy
into the room. I didn't know what to expect, but
I am delightfully surprised.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Listen, thank you, and
I brought this little bag with me. Here, this cute
little bag here from my little girl Maya, who I
helped her. Last year she was on America Scott Talent.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, she got to play heavy metal guitar wearing her
Indian sadi and got to be herself and only the
tenures Maya Maya.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, I gotta find her. I gotta track her down too,
because that's amazing. What you're doing out here is big
and thanks for passing it down, you know, to the
younger generation.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah, that's what we have to do.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Our presentation matters.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
We have to kick down the doors and light the
way for them seriously.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
And on that note, Grassiers Come Again, Thank you, Bye bye.
Grassiers Come Again is a production of Honey German Productions
in partnership with Iheart's Mike When Podcast Network
Gracias Come Again a podcast by Honey German. Welcome to
another episode of Gracias Come Again. Today, I'm sitting down
with Jessica Pimente. I like saying the name of Espanol.
How how are you feeling today? You look beautiful?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you? So do you jumped up and hugged you
like a little labrador. Where you are?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's the puppy here.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's adorable.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's adorable.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It works, keep it, put it in the pocket, it works.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Latinas today, I can feel I already feel the energy
is going to be just good.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
When I get with Dominicanas, it just it just feels
like it can never end. Dasha Bolanco was here. We
did a two hour episode.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Did she move in?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
She didn't want to leave?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And you know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
When I when I vibe with the person, then it
just becomes a conversation and then I'm like, what did
you want to promote again? Oh yeah? And it's crazy
because people be writing all the time. When is Dasha
coming back? I'm like, it was one episod, so please
I'll bring it back.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Me and her.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
She's fantastic, so mussy, but I feel like I feel
like that same energy with you, like we're going to
be able to do you know, just talk, get into you. Yeah,
where you grew up, Where you were born? Where were
you born?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I was born in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah, I grew
up in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No place better on that right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Actually, I feel very fortunate that I grew up in
that neighborhood. My parents came here as immigrants and when
they were very young, my mom was twelve ish, you know,
like preteen, not little children, but yeah, enough that you
still hold on to your country, but you also know
that you have to adapt to the new one. So
it's not not when you come here as a little
(01:40):
kid that you kind of don't remember, or you come
as an adult that you're already said warm ways. Right,
So my mom is like she was multiple still, mouldible still.
So I give her so much, you know, praise that
she came at such a young age, letting go of
everything that she knew.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
She came alone or her parents where.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Our whole family came over little by little, basically because
my my mother's oldest sister got married and he had
family here and they moved here. Then my grandmother missed
her too much. You know that when they're tight like that.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It's always one person that comes in. You guys set
up shopping in Brooklyn and then up shot.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In shop in Brooklyn and started bringing each bringing people over,
setting up work, setting up the PaperWorks.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Chat. Want to bring our family with.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Us, yes, Sack, though they didn't want to be split up,
and I don't blame them.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Family is everything, yes, because we.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Are each other's supports system, each other's care system, emergency
rescue system. And everyone you know, came and they found
their dreams and they accomplished their goals. And I'm so
proud of everyone in my family is someone that I
look up to, admire respect. I know.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It's like we all branch out into different things, you know,
like when as an accounting and as a teacher and
others a doctor on the basis because you know, we
got to become something.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Or to die recovered. Right.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And then your dad and your mom met here in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, they met in d Are actually when they were
they were childhood sweethearts. Oh okay, you know they got
married young. Don't tell me twelve, no, no, no, no, okay,
because I would be like, WHOA, this is different when
they were of age to get married. Okay, but they
for me, I think they got married a little young
and they you know, when you're young, you don't know
what you want in life. So unfortunately they when.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You're thirty, you still don't know what you want in life.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Mainline, people are getting married so much later and later
because you know, we're figuring out who we are later
and later. And so they they grew apart and things
were not good. That's fine, goodbye, they had they got
a divorce, and it was for the best. I will
say as an adult not hearing things stories.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Listen, my mother's been married three times.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
There you go. You know that you and I also
commend my mother that she never bad mouthed my dad.
I knew. I didn't know anything about their adult relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That so she didn't tarnish your image.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, she didn't have There was no reason too.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
But it happened.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, it happens a lot of the time, I know,
because people want you to pick a side or something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, and things just that's good. She allowed you to
have your father without you know, poisoning you.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Absolutely, and you know what, I had such a great
support system. Anyway, it sounds so strange. I never felt
like I was missing my father because I had my grandmother,
my aunts, my.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Cousins, yet a tribe.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I had a whole tribe of people, and like the
it was a matriarchal family. So there, you were gonna
win anyway, you were gonna win, so Awela, Mommy diam
So I never felt like the lack of a man
figure in my life. It's like, oh that's extra, you know,
like we could add that later in life, but you
(04:43):
have to first be full yourself and rounded and accomplished
on your own.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
No daddy issues here, no, you know, you know some
people have them, but maybe people like me and you.
It was just like, you know, my father was absentee
in and out, but I never felt like my mother
was just so strong, Mystillauela that I just I just
felt like fulfilled and.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Complete exactly the same. That's how I felt.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
And I know fathers are very important, but you can
be an accomplished and very flilled woman even if your
father is not part of your life.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Exactly, absolutely, and that we don't seek that validation for men.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh no, absolutely, Now you know it's you know, I
hate it when they're like Oh, she got daddy issues.
Why would you, Oh, she's promiscuous as hell, that's daddy issues.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Not necessarily, maybe she's just having a good time exactly.
I don't know how am I to judge.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
They always, you know, they always want to blame it
on that. But I feel like, to me, it didn't
affect me and obviously didn't affect you, because look, look
look at us, look at where we are. Shout out
to them, you know, thanks for making.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Us, Thanks Ma Mo, because you know, it was growing
up my mamula, it always you know, it's just like,
did you ever go to La Well, I actually have
never been. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
The truth?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And I don't know why it's a block I think
that my mother put on me. I think part of
the reason why they left was the political climate was
getting very hot right there in nineteen sixty seven type
that was, and it was getting dangerous. So I feel
like my mother kind of instilled in me to not
(06:26):
go there because it could be dangerous, Like she put
a fear in me kind of. And then it's just
not come up. It's just like not not come up.
I mean, I took my first vacation ever of my
whole life to go someplace where I didn't have to work.
It wasn't for something else. It wasn't because I was
on tour, my husband was on tour. Was because I
(06:47):
wanted to go there and be alone together with my
partner for the first time last year. Well, maybe ther
is going to be on the list. Yeah, because he's
been there more time than me. He's sweetish, She's been
there like eight times.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You know, like, oh, no, no he goes next time.
He can't go alone anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, no, he can't go alone anymore. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
This is all before you met him that he went to.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
His family travels, and that's something that I love. That's
something that I really really admire. Love, love to travel,
go around the world a lot because of what we
do that is not what we you know, what people
know us for or know me for.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So you live, you lived part time in Sweden and
part time in New York.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Pretty much, but pretty much it's since the pandemic we
spent most of the time in Sweden. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know, in the world that we live in now,
with everything electronic, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Where you are. Really, it's like as a Latina from
New York, like I would not even think about.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's the man. He tricked me. He got me to
stay there. Then I had to get a visa because
I was there too long. And then lo and behold,
now you're a resident. And that's how they get you.
You know, they trick you how reverse No no, no, no,
(08:10):
clad well yeah whatever. That was part of it, but
not the entire of it. The way he looks is wonderful.
Part is very good looking, handsome man. I'm very proud
of him.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
How did you meet him?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We met through the music scene. Okay, he's a musician.
He plays in a band called Sugar. He's the drummer
Sugar Sugar and world Famous Sugar. Let's just not be
like a ban No, the world Famous Sugar on your
proud of him award winning one of the greatest drummers
in the world according to Rolling Stone magazine. But that's
(08:45):
not it. What was it was one day he came
up to me and just said, I'm so proud of you.
And we were friends though we had just been acquaintances.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So he knew you as a musician, you knew him
as a musician.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
He knew me before really the show was kind of
out and we talked as friends. I didn't I never
got that vibe from him that he was interested. And
a year passes and we're still kind of friends, chatting
and all that, and uh, one day he says, you know,
I'm so proud of you, and I think we belong
together and we would be a great couple. He just
(09:21):
decided it. We didn't have a date, we didn't go.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Out, we didn't even watching you as that's what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And he was taking notes.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
These notes make.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He had more than that. He's like, I'm just so
proud of you, the way you carry yourself off, everything
you've accomplished since I've known you over the years, and
I would like to take you out to dinner. So
we're in La at a music conference, the music manufacturer
whatever it's called, ma'am. So we're at this music conference
with all our friends from around the world in La.
I live in New York. He lives in Sweden. And
(09:53):
I said, so, what are you gonna do. You're gonna
fly from Sweden to New York to take me to dinner?
And he said yes.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
She said, what's the plan? When are you free?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
And I was like, haha, whenever you get here, I'll
be free because you know people, they love to talk,
they love to talk. I'm like, you don't have to
butter me up for like a hookup like this. That's
a lot. He's like, no, that's not what I want.
I think we belong together. And eleven years later, here
we are.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Wow. Yeah, do you feel like that's your soulmate?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, he has all the qualities that I admire. Respect
I had written a list. Actually, I was fed up
at this point in life with dating guys and la right.
You know, at some point you have to say, maybe
it's not that, Maybe it's me. I keep picking the
wrong one.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Don't do that the second arrow. They shoot the first one,
then you shoot the second.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I keep picking the wrong one. I'm meeting people like
why am I going anywhere? So the first thing I wrote,
he must come to me. You know, he must have
a to come to me. He has to have a
great relationship with his family, especially his mother.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
He has to.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
He has to and this sounds really bad, but be
shallow and be real with yourself. He must make as
much or more than me. He must be as successful
or more successful than me. Because a lot of the
problems I had in my relationships were with jealousy, not
necessarily of people looking at you, but jealousy of your success.
(11:20):
And they would try to sabotage when you got a
part that took you out of the country. They got
jealous when you got to do a red carpet and
would sabotage that night. Somehow, every red carpet, every opening
of a play, every closing night of a play, every premiere,
every fashion somehow, every time I had one of these things,
the person I was with would find a way to
(11:41):
fuck it up, just throw it up. They would fuck
it up right, And I'm like, how could this possibly
be that there's always a family emergency or a fight
or a screaming something, or you know, like the building's
on fire, or my dress is ripped, or I can't
or I can't drive you there. You're gonna have to
take the train. Take the train, and I'm gonna Oscar
de la Renta. I'm like on the train like in
(12:02):
Oscar Lorna because he's like, I don't feel like it
driving it. So it's like it's someone who's a team.
I mean, you want someone who's a teammate, a partner,
but so who also has their own thing that they
love and excel at. So they're not worried about what
you're doing because it's not going to take away from
what they're doing. Because sometimes the people who are insecure
(12:26):
feel like every time you have a success it takes
away from them, it takes you away from them, or
you might wake up and realize that they're not good
enough for you and you might leave them. So they're
worried about you leaving them, so they keep making you insecure.
They keep trying to point out your flaws, they keep
trying to hold you back, make you feel guilty. Yeah,
(12:47):
so I say, you know what, I'm not using it.
Here's the list of what I need. Like any job interview,
if you don't meet the criteria, you don't get the
coffee date a not even coffee.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
So you went through it and you're.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
He took that list, He ate it through it like
he was like, this is all you want because I
got it all.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
As I'm so happy for you, man, because honestly, having
a strong partner and a partner that is supportive and
not jealous or sabotaging you and your success and your happiness.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's top of the list. Yes, he's top of the list.
Only encourages me. He only wants me to do the
best I can. He's always supportive, number one cheerleader. If
I come out, I want to walk down the street
in bikini n I's like you go, mommy, wait a
pink right. He's like, Okay, you're gonna wear that. Okay,
you do, you wear what you want, You do what
(13:37):
you want, Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So happy.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, he's fantastic because I've been in relationships where you
come out and a guy will be like, oh, you
can't wear that, that's too much attention Latino or no,
he wasn't Latino. But we walked like a block and
he's like, too many people are looking at you. You
have to change in New York. In New York.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and it's like nobody's looking at nobody in New York.
I know that was deep because you know we can wait.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Whatever was his own brain, Yeah, imagine because you could
be naked in New York and naked.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Just don't touch me, touch me ill exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So that's their own insecurity that they project on you,
and then you start to carry it. And this was
unfortunately my you know, late teens, mid twenties that that happened.
So it takes a while to get yourself out of
that bunk of believing the stupid shit they tell you
because it's not true.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
At that age, you're so impressionable, and you start to
believe like this is how it is and this is
the truth.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, and you start to think, well, this is what
love is, right, we got a good times and fan
times hurts. No, it doesn't, No, it doesn't. No. It
makes you stronger and and happier and more relaxed.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It doesn't trigger your nervous system exactly. Please can we
talk about that?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, just fall asleep in that arm pit, and you know,
right now on edge with the person you love. You know,
shouldn't be walking on his eggshells with some I mean
I had somewhat in my life that when my phone
would ring, I would get nervous because I didn't know
who was calling, and he would check my phone, oh
you know. And it got to a point where I
stopped talking to any male friends, male relatives, no one,
(15:22):
and then the girls even you know. Then it was like,
will you talk to Susie too much? Why he talked
to Susie so much now. Then he started cutting out
the girls, and then then it got to a point
where the only two people that were calling were my
mom and my agent. And one day he said, how
do I know that's your mom calling? He says mom
on the phone, and I was like, what do you mean?
Says mom. He's like, you could have put anybody's name there,
and I was like, damn, I never even thought of that,
(15:44):
Like it.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I want to buy him right now.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I thought that never ever even crossed my mind because
I don't think that way. And I'm like, let me
see your phone. What you got on there? Your mom?
The numbers match here?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
If you over here thinking I'm doing that. I never
even thought of that.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It isn't that ridiculous, It is I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
That kind of the thought doesn't even cross your mind.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I'd be like hat guy I met downstairs. That's how
I don't know what to tell exactly. You know, you
want to know who is called? What's called?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'm so happy, you know you're in a good space
and being happy, and your relationship is so important as
a creative Yes, you can't create if you're unhappy. Yes,
how can you go on stage if you just had
a fight with someone, like, you can't really deliver your
best performance if you just had to fight backstage with someone, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
But that's when I think of like the early red
carpets and stuff, and not just me, but a lot
of women that I have worked with. I know, you know, oh,
I know we're here smiling people smiling away, all glamored
up and not knowing that you know, this one got
locked out of her house by the boyfriend the other day,
or this one I got left at the side of
the b que by her boyfriend, or you know, like.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
You know, you bring that up. And when Dasha was here,
she shared that she was being abused at home while
she was on Oranges the New Black, and she was
still operating the way that she needed to operate. Like,
imagine being physically abused and then having to go to
red car I can't picture it. I can't just I.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Can't compartmentalize, and you dissociate and you just make the
two things not be the same thing. And that's I
think a lot of us function that way, especially artists.
A lot of us have been through a lot already,
and we need to be able to use that in
a way that it is positive and helpful that we
can channel into our art and make it through the
(17:34):
day as a functioning human being. We need to be
able to close those doors.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
There's no I'm going to stay in bed all day
when you have to be down sat time for that.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
No, there is none.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
And you know, it's something that a lot of people
don't talk about. And we see you all on red
carpets and at the SAG Award in with your awards
and with your gowns, and we can't imagine that you're
going through what you're going through, whether it be physical, verbal, emotional,
because there's a lot of different forms of abuse. People
feel like, oh, he doesn't hit me, he doesn't abuse me.
Yelling at you is abusing you, Manipulating you is There's
(18:07):
so many different ways you know that you can be abused,
and we still have to show up and be our
best selves.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Absolutely, and heartbreak, and still the show must go on.
You know, we have things that a person would take
the day off for if some a family member dies
or your friend passes, or someone's in the hospital, we
still have to go. We can't like, oh, sorry, three
hundred people, six hundred people, a thousand people that are
making this machine. Gul my friend died. You know, they
don't care, and you better look good and you have
(18:33):
to look while doing it and let those tears fall
to the side.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
You better not mess up those lashes.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Like crying. You know, trust me, I feel you, you know,
and you're just wait till you have the time to cry.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And sometimes you know, I can finally go home and
cry now.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yep. So that's how it is.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Sad as that, but you know, the show must go on.
You're in show business. You understand. It's just like, listen,
there's no crying in baseball.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
No, exactly, there's no crying in baseball.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, there's no crime unless you're on set, right, Unless you're.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
On set, that's when it's really hard. You're like cry cry,
punking out nose hairs. You're like house, that's gonna work.
I cried all day yesterday. I have no tears left.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Orange is a new black now, you know now that
we mentioned Dasha, Dasha was here, Elizabeth Rodriguez was here
after you. That's the last that's the last prob. Yeah,
it's all four of you. I wanted to talk to
because you know it just that show, the way it
put Latina's in the forefront. Finally, we stole the show.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
We stole the show.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I don't care, o't care. You guys are so amazing
on this show in so many seasons, and the way
that it's kind of like still so relevant today.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It is so strange that I guess Netflix had done
like a resurgence of it because now I'm seeing kids
that were definitely not old enough to watch it when
it came out coming up to me still Maria in Sweden,
you know, like all over the world, Like Maria, I
was like, you're not old enough to how You're like, Hi, yeah,
(20:05):
You're like, but you weren't. Oh, you're watching it for
the first time now, ten years after we more than
ten years after we started. I mean it was twenty
nineteen was the last chapter that we released. So you're
thinking now sixty years after we finished, now you're starting.
It's like this is going to live forever.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It is.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's not going a way because the topics are still relevant.
Unfortunately Doue relevant at times, and at the end of
the day, it's about the human condition, right, and we
had to show that deeply honestly, truthfully, to the best
of our abilities. And unfortunately people we don't change. We
keep going the same cycles over and over and over,
(20:46):
trapped in the same cycles, especially with generational you know,
I don't want to call them curses, but things that
people pass now yeah, yeah, But the way that Orange
is the new black, you know, humanize the women in jail,
that's what was special about it, you know, because we
understand the you know, incarceration black and brown women, white
women too. But it's just like, this is what happened,
(21:06):
this is this is the reality of who she truly is,
Like it wasn't this is her crime and it stops there,
right because that would have been such as the service
to the whole, you know, show well, you see the
crimes that were committed, and I do that in air quotes.
Some things were just so stupid. But once you get
in the system, you're just like falling, sliding down, slipping around,
(21:27):
and you can't get out. It's meant it's stacked against you, you.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Know, because you think about let's say, let's say with
Seleni's character, you know what I'm saying, like, what was
she doing? What was she doing? The food stamps me.
You know what I'm saying. That happens every single day.
But to ruin a mom's life forever and ever over
something a white collar crime that a white man would
probably just get.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
A fine and they would go home to his three
girlfriends and whatever. Then life goes on and life goes on.
No would even bad in eye. It's like, oh, you
got mixed up in a lot of oh so beneath you,
Like that's what they would think. They wouldn't even.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That crime is not even worth, not.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Even worthy of your your presence, how dev I can't
believe it. Pay the fine and I'll see what is
Okay theater, Okay, theater.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love this. You just you know, you just went
right into character and I'm here for it now. Was
Orange your first It was your breakout role.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, breakout role, but by no means my first role. Okay,
I started acting in junior high. Well, I saw you
went to perform and went to LaGuardia. Uh. In LaGuardia,
I would say that we received professional training. So and
they said, listen, if you want to go out into
the world, you're ready. But if you want to keep training,
you can get into whatever school you choose, you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Know, was it always acting for you?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
No, it started off as music. I started off as
a classical violinist.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I saw that you play the violin. Yeah, you play
the guitar, Yeah, play the bass, yeah, your vocalist. Yeah,
you're an actress. Yes, I'm like Jesus Christ, I said,
I need to step up.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I'm an only child. We're still friends.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Is that what happens?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's like a lot of time alone.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
No, I think my mom said.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Mom said no, the opposite, She's like, this is your instrument,
don't do anything else.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Which one was it the violin?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
But I think what it was is being an only
child living in New York where we were not really
allowed to roam the streets where I was from, or
not really where I was from. That's not it. It's uh,
my family was not that kind of family that lets
your kids go roam the streets. That's what I want, right,
because you get out of school, you go up stairs,
you lock the door, you don't homework, and that's it exactly.
(23:36):
So it wasn't because it was a dangerous thing. It's
like you're just not supposed to be out in the streets.
It's dangerous world. Is dangerous out there. No no no
in the house. And uh and I'm happy for that
because I got to explore my imagination. I had, you know,
(23:59):
imaginary SCENEARI I watched a lot of PBS, a lot
of Channel thirteen, so I got to learn everything. I
got to read all the time. My mom was a
young mom, so we would have little dance parties or
carry out. Oh yeah, we had a lot of fun
growing up. Dance party, karaoke party, all about music. And
then was introduced to the violin and by some look
of the luck, right, the miracle of how things work.
(24:22):
My next door neighbor was a concert violinist.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, So he started hearing these terrible sounds next door.
You're just screeching yes when you're starting, and he's like,
let me help this out for real. Yeah, I'm gonna
taught me how to tune the violin and how to
hold it and would give me a little lessons once
in a while in Brooklyn or no, he's Arab Italian
(24:46):
because it's Brooklyn. We're all missed. So you know, everybody something,
say something.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I'm just trying to put a face to who this
man was. That went and said, hold on, somebody's in
this struggling families.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Were friends, were like a kid, they had kids about
the same age. He was a little bit older. Autmann
Albanies was his name, and uh and uh. But then
he moved away. He grew up and he moved away
and uh. I started just playing on my own by ear.
And there was a record store that would throw out
records every Sunday that people were not buying and for
the yeah, final records and for the most part they
(25:17):
were going to be classical records. So I started started
learning how to play this on my own by ear.
And then they started giving after school program because single mom,
you know, put you in the after school program. And
there was a music program and there was the Brownies.
And I went to the music program and I was
like so bored, so I sneaked across the hallway to
the Brownies. And then somebody ratted me out and said
(25:40):
that I wasn't taking music classes, that I was doing
the Brownies thing, because I was like, ooh, arthen Crafts,
this is so fun. I don't think I was six
or seven, six six years old, sad on my own,
and I got in trouble. Of course, my mom came
down to this school. I said, I already know how
to play violin. You know this. It was like, and
they're like, okay, play this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I
(26:02):
played a Twinkle Twinkle little Star, killed it. Yeah, And
then I play this other thing. I don't know what
it was. Merrily we roll along, Okay, same song. And
then I was like, I can play the mendelsn Concerto
in E minor. And they're like what I said, I
like to play the Mendelssohn Concerto and E minor. Thank
you very much, I'll play the first movement for you.
I'm not saying it was good. Let's let's be let's
(26:23):
be exact there. But I went for it. And they
brought the director of the Rooster School of Music, who
had sponsored that after school program, to the school to
hear me play. And I got a full scholarship to
the Ruster School Music. Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
She a prodigy.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I started taking third taking lessons there several times a week,
and then also chamber music, and then eventually it would
lead me to orchestra and being a concertmaster of the
New York Youth Carnegie Carnegie multiple times. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That listen. If you're listening from anywhere outside of New York,
that is the venue to play.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That is prestigious, very very prestigious.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So I just been there, yeah, and I was like, wow,
this is amazing Queen.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
As you know, I was not here. It was so
many you were Sweden.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
She's coming to the Bronx in October.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Okay, I'll be here.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
You'll be here. Yes, we're going. I met bet to
get a little tickets. Yes, no person, no person, Lemon College,
make your calls.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
But that's one of those women I admire so much,
even if it's not a style of music that I play,
it's her confidence, her energy, her swag, her journey, her.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
She stood among the men when reggae.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And that's how I feel in metal right it's a
male dominated, white male dominated for the most can.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Metal because it was just Jessica actress, you know what
I'm saying. But then when I got digging deep and
I was like, what metal?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Have you metal?
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Hey? How did this talk to me? Talk to me?
How did this happen?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
This is one of those I wish I had a
time machine moments in your life. Rudier was not my
first band by any means.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I just love the name. I gravitated to it immediately.
I can only imagine how this even happened.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Uh late great Bruco and Peach, who both sadly passed
away last year, or to main singers and songwriters passed
away last year for different causes very close to each other.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
It's hard for me to talk about it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I had first heard Burhidiya exactly the way you're supposed
to first hear Buridia is a tape of a tape
that sounds terrible and you don't know what it is.
And the thing is, it was like a fantasy band
where they made this backstory of some Narcos four floor
like right, it was kind of like a modern day
(28:48):
I don't like an not an opera, but a modern
day folklore band where everyone had a character and you
didn't know who was in the band. Everybody had a mask,
everybody had an alias, and the tape.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Just as ever, you don't know what's going to happen when.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
You know what is and you put it on and
it sounds like it was recorded in a cave. You know.
With my first sony like it's so heavy. It's like,
oh no, these guys being business.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
You know, the portal is about to open up, the portals.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
About to open it up, and they're like, how do
you sneak you know, how do you sneak people into
the country in the back of a tru I mean
the it's and it's all in Spanish, which is great
because it's like, you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
There's it's a secret.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, it was really secret. And over the years it
developed into it really grew into this strange, amazing phenomenon
where they got the best players from every band of
all around the world in metal to assume aliases and
identities and join the band with people knowing because before
(29:58):
so you, you and everybody had their face covered. You
didn't know what version you were gonna get of the band.
Sometimes there are six of them, sometimes there's ten of them.
Sometimes there's a Bruca, sometimes there's not a bruca. There
was there were two previous CRUs Yeah, it was fluid,
and also who was free, who needed money, who was
who had the visa because people didn't have Yeah, who
(30:18):
didn't have the visa? Who was close? Whose equipment was working? Yeah,
who was on tour. And then uh then I I
mean I saw them for the first time at Webster Hall.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I believe it was twenty ten, another iconic.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So Webster Hall, another iconic venue, and I couldn't believe
that I was actually seeing them in midmos, that I
was in the balcony. I ran into the backstage area
through the dressing room and I jumped on the stage
and I grabbed the microphone and I sang, and it
(30:59):
was like, what it's like. I cemented it that.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Day that I'm part of this.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I couldn't even just watch anymore. I'm like, I need
to be a part of this. It's like, oh, so fierce,
so fierce and crazy and saying. And that was like
my first formal introduction to them. And then a few years.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Later that was a takeover girl.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I was. I just couldn't control myself. I'm very bad
at shows. I'm very bad at shows. I have no
self control. You know how people just go to shows
and they just that they're cool. I have none of
that in my body. I'm pretty calm now, but if
there's a performer that I like, I cannot I cannot not.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I feel because you feel music I feel music.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I love it. I love as people can hear it.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, some people live it like it just goes through
your body. And that's probably the way you take music absolutely.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And as a performer, you love to see when someone
is enjoying your work. So I feel like I owe
it to them, you know, to just run up and sitting.
No no, no no. But then we met you years later,
twenty sixteen, and I'll never forget. They're playing a Grammarcy Theater,
another theater that I love, iconic theater, and I just
come off set. I was there for eighteen hours that day,
(32:10):
and I was like, there's no way that I'm going
to miss in this venue, which is such a close,
intimate venue, I'm gonna miss this, No way I'm going
to miss this. And I got to meet everyone after
the show and there was a Bruka previous it wasn't
working out with them, and then he just just tapped
me and said, how do you feel about being the
(32:32):
new Bruka? And I was like, uh hold on, let
me call thirteen year old me for a sec.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
And you when do I start?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
When do I start? Sure? And with no rehearsal, I
got my set list no rehearsal. I showed up that
day with outfit changes. I just had one sound check
of one song that I was going to sing and
half a song and that was it and they and
they're like, okay, eight o'clock showtime, let's see you see there. Yeah,
it was. It was wonderful because it was for the
(33:04):
first time, not for the first time, but the way
Brujo wanted to depict. The women in his life were
always strong, confident, uh feminists. They're feminists. So I felt
like I was finally doing something like really in your face,
(33:26):
not so pretty, not so likable, necessarily agro, you know,
but extremely feminists without being in describe the words. It
was just something that's that meant so much to me
to be able to be a part of that which
sometimes you know, they got to always check that temperature
with the machismo in the room, so that always broke
(33:47):
down that machismo because the woman, the women would come
out with a machete and tell everybody to calm down
just like them and control them. And you have them
and you're like, yes, I'm strong too, mother.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's why I run my life. Mm hm, So I
don't let im me tell it, and I feel, you know,
because with us, it's like they want us to be
certain ways, and we're not always allowed to be, you know,
as strong and as aggressive and you know, as we
want to be in the spaces that we occupy, because
it's not a lady like exactly, and I don't want
(34:25):
to live like that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean, that's one of the things that I was
worried about, actually that the previous Blue House I used
to call her the heavy metal Charro, and she always
had a bosta and she was always s but she
was always very aggressive, but she was always dressed in
ultra feminine, sexy, sexy clothes. So I brought some outfits
like that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Are we talking like Jenny ribera kind of sort of
like those Mexican goals?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, a little bit of that. She was all,
you know, she's some work done. She was not afraid
I won't get these days. But she was still she
was still very aggressive on stage, but the way she
presented herself with ultra feminine, ultra sexy like that makes
boys scared sexy kind of ultra. So when I brought
consumes like that that day, he said, no, I want
(35:08):
you covered from head to toe.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
They wanted more like a militant that already.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
She did that, that's her legacy. But that's not you.
That's not your style. And I know that, and you
should show the girls that the you don't have to
be that. You can be strong, you can be covered
and still be sexy and fine.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Af You know I say that all the time. You know,
when I see people with two little clothing, I'm like,
you can be covered from head to toe and be
the sexiest.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Bitch in the room. Yes, trust your energy.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
It's how you carry yourself. Absolutely, And like I tell
my sister all the time, men have actual vision. They
can see right through whatever. Let's see a nune and
be like she got fat ass on the.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's men, boys, But that's.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Men for you.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You don't have to Less is not always more, No,
absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I'm so proud of man, like talking to you, like
I read it all and I was watching the videos
and everything, but now talking to you and you know,
just seeing you know how important it is for you
to push through that energy. It makes me even more
proud because especially in that space of you know, metal,
we were talking behind the scenes, how it is very
Latino but in mainstream America we're stripped of that part
(36:22):
of our identity.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Mexico when you go to Mexico, yeah, talk to me,
talk to me about the vibe out there, Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
My goodness, I mean Central South America in general for metal,
it's like it's like nothing else, like a homecoming. It's
it's like a homecoming. Absolutely when we would go down there,
the towns would shut down. A wait, I would roast
a pig, you know, like that, there would be a
whole house party. They'd close the restaurants down so we
would have a place to be, and just because they're
(36:52):
just a I think part of it is the folklore
has stuck so well for all those years that it's
like your very own superhero Arrows are here. Yeah. So
it's like being fans of the storyline, but then also
being fans of the very political, extremely political content of
our music. Ruho was always very political. He was very honest.
(37:19):
He wrote about, you know, all the things that let's say,
white Hollywood would spin on us anyway. He said, oh,
why don't you get it from our side of the story.
Then you want to talk about, you know, not a
tra Affricos come from this side. Now, come come here,
let me tell you a story from this side. What
it works like. You want to talk about, you know,
illegal immigration, border crossing. Let me tell you the border
(37:42):
crossing from our side, where we're praying that we don't
die on the way over. You got to hear it. Yeah,
we do it. But here's our side. Watch this, and
he was he never held back with his lyrics, he
never held back with the content. I mean to the
point where we've gotten a lot of backlash for things.
And unfortunately, now in the day and age of internet,
you know everything, you can't hide anything. Yeah. And also
(38:05):
it's satire a lot of the times it's very satirical
and not everyone. It's like we're losing our our sense
of knowing when something is satire now because of the
world we live in, the climate we live in, people
wake up every day and say did this really happen?
Or is this? Did I dream this? Or is this
really happening right now?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
And now you interject AI and it's like, oh my god,
forget about it.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I feel so bad for I'm finding you know, people
that are a little bit older, they can't really tell
and it's hard for me to tell my mom is
watching video. I'm like, mom, that's not right, real artificial.
Like I was like, please, my mom sent me a
video of Endrique Esia singing the psalms. I'm like, mom,
that is not him and he would not sing that.
(38:50):
But I'm glad you like it. It sounds good.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Now, Yeah, that AI and and music, AI and acting, Like,
what are your thoughts on that? The way it's you know,
like they're like, oh, now they're making AI artists.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I mean it's terrifying to some degree as a creative.
As a creative, yes, what they can do with our images.
That's why we have our unions like Screen Actors Guild,
laugh Tractors Equity, things like that to make sure that
our images are used the way we want them to
be used, and that if they're used without our presence,
(39:25):
that we still get paid for it.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
As because there's.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Been things that I was like, oh, I never post
for that, but there I am. I don't remember that. Yeah,
they just can digitally manipulate for I mean, we already
have photoshop, right, sure, so that's nothing new. But they
can make you Now, they can make you talk and
they have the fake AI version of you selling cookies.
I don't know whatever it could be, so you have
to really be vigilant with that. But also what I
(39:50):
noticed is there's no AI is going to be able
to tap into human emotion, inflection, and heart. So when
you have those AI. For example, I've been doing audiobooks.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I know, I saw that congratulations on your nomination.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Thank you, thank you so much. But the books also
come in the you know, the assisted reader that it's
just the computer reading to you.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I can't do it. I'm sorry, I cannot do it. Yeah,
so if I need your voice.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Thank you, thank you nominated.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
No A, I will never have a soul, you know.
And I was at an event, you know, with Jay
Shetty on Friday, and we talked about AI, and he said,
it'll never be human, it'll never feel.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
It doesn't know when to stop. It doesn't know when
the pauses happen because your heart is breaking, It doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
The voice can't quiver. The voice just stays like this.
I can't And you know, with audiobooks, I'm weird, like
if I don't like.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
The voice, Oh no, that's for everyone.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That's it. I'm done. Bye, I can't listen to this book,
And don't you write an autobiography and hire somebody else
to do your voice, because I'm going to be so
mad at you. And I'm talking just in general, like
if I know you, you know, shout out Angie Martinez.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
She Angie.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I know she did her book and I watched her
narrate her book daily for weeks, and I was just like,
she's a g because you know Mahina. So Angie does
an audiobook and hire somebody else will do it for her.
There's no point, none at all. And anybody who does
their life story and autobiography, I demand that you use
your world. I don't care how long it takes. I
(41:25):
don't care how many hours, lot of pressure it is,
but I need it. I need it. I'm a I'm
an audio person. You know what visual is different. You know,
you have all your distractions. You know, when somebody's gonna
be watching this, they're gonna be like, oh, look at
her bag and look at her water, honey, and take
the label off, and they're gonna be talking about you know.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
But when you listen, it's just like it goes right
to your host. Yes, it makes you make your own
pictures exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Remember that imagination reading when you're little.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Oh my god, the whole thing was alive all around you.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And now we get it with a voice. I love
audio works. I am a book person and I love authors,
and I love that you're doing that. It's crazy. It's
what is called audible.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Audible.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, they're in Jersey and I used to always see
the vands. They would transport the people, and I used
to be like, I can work there and I could
just narrate books. You can have a beautiful I used
to say it all the time. And after that. That
was a long time ago, probably like ten years ago.
And now it's such a big thing.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Because people realize the convenience of it. You can have
it anywhere you want. You can you can do it
when you're getting ready in the morning or when you're driving,
or you could do it doing workouts.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
That workout or sometimes your job was paying you.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
You could be listening to a book or doing your workout.
You know, like if you don't feel like listening to
music that day, sometimes you're taking just taking a story in.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know, how did that happen for you? Like you
end up I'm narrating.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
It's funny. I think I was just approached many years ago.
Did you you know those books that you get at
the bottom of the subway five dollars from those gangster books.
I started with those and I loved it and I
loved it, but I didn't I had no.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
You did it for an author, or you did it
for like a printed for.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
A printing house, And I love doing it, but I
wasn't like quite ready yet. I didn't really understand the
nuances yet. It's it's very tedious. It requires a lot
of concentration. You have to prepare for the story because
stories twist and turn so they can't catch you. And
you're like, and then he showed up with a knife.
You can be You have to know the story very well,
(43:26):
so you have to.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Prepare another craft that you have your role right.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
You have to prepare that, and you have to take
care of your body, be hydrated, beasts, have your rest,
have your right clothes on. And also when you have
multiple characters in a book, so my last audio.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Books, realize that you would have to voice all the people.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, you voiced all the people. So my last book
was Anita Monte Laf's last and we were three main
characters because were there were three main characters. But as
you're talking as one character, another character will come in.
But I had to keep track of my characters. That
would be like this your voices. I told Jack not
to come here, but I told her not to be here.
(44:07):
But I mean, it's still you. You're not trying to
vo it's like a cartoon, but you have to make.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Some conflictions and everything is like your.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Tone accents changed.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Still, yeah, girl, do's have a multiple personalities. Kudos to you.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I don't think that could be give me a biography, Okay,
I want one person that's like in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
That but that's it. That's it in the world. You
know now that you talk about you know, you have
to be in the right mood and you know, Buddhism,
that's your thing. Yeah, I love that. I'd love that,
you know, aside from and don't judge me, well, aside
from the Tina Turner story, I've never you know, like
experienced or met anyone you know who is into Buddhism.
(44:51):
But and you've been practicing for a long time now. Yeah,
since I was a teenager basically, no, I read the nineties,
I'm like, wait, but she's so young.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yes, And since I was a teenager, I was always
a very spiritual kid my whole life. I mean, I
grew up in the church and all that, and a
good church, not a friar brimstone type church, and a
good Jesus Loves you church, And I think there got
to be a point where I started to question things
and say, but why does all this bad stuff keep happening?
And there was no answer there other than, you know,
(45:33):
God's testing. I'm like, but God made me? Why God
have to test me? I don't want to be We're
just not clicking for me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Math was mathing when it came to the Bible exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Things were just not clicking for me. And then the
people who were supposed to be the spiritual people were
not doing the right things in church, let's just say that.
So their behavior also made me question why, why what
were we doing? What are we doing here? My mom
had this book, you know, on her shelf, Religions of
the World, the college class that she took, you know,
(46:03):
back in the day, and that book starts with, you know, animism.
It starts with the big one Christianity, Judaism. I had
a lot of Jewish friends. I went to the temple
a lot with them. I helped them study there for
their bar mitzvahs, you know, And I'm like, that's kind
of the same thing. But the Jesus thing, Like the
the structure, the Abrahamic structure was the same. Then was Animism,
(46:24):
which was basically Native American religion. So we know in
our culture a lot of words that we use, a
lot of traditions that we have, the medicines our grandma
gave us that comes from them, the taino arawog az
tech may en whatever wherever you're from, your people, our ancestors.
So I felt like that was a piece of it,
to get back in touch with that essence, because the
(46:48):
you know, that conquering mentality, that conquested mentality, wants you
to shun away from that. That's bad, that that's evil somehow,
but it's but it's not, it's good. It's from the
from the.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
It's our roots, man, and we have to tap it.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
So we denied our own roots of where we come from,
as if we didn't have our own experience for millions
and millions of years, and also mixed with how mixed
we are, especially in the Caribbean, how all those things
come together spiritually, because how can we say that one
spiritual world is different than another. But I kept exploring that,
and then I was in the hardcore scene, and a
(47:25):
big part of the hardcore scene was a hard Christiana scene,
and I went to their temples and I'm like, this
is kind of closer, though, but it wasn't quite it
for me, and I started reading the daudey Ching and
the dowdey Ching completely kind of eliminates esoteric things from
the picture. It says, if you do a B will happen.
One plus one is two, the plus two is four.
(47:47):
If you want four, you know how you do it
very illogical. So it's for the first time it wasn't
something in the sky that I couldn't see or speak
of waiting to smite me for being bad. It was
just it was just like logical behavior, cause and effect, result, consequence.
And it really spoke to me in the sense that
(48:08):
it felt like everything was up to me in my
hands to some degree. If I'm suffering, it's my fault
to some degree. And I do have control over things
and things change. And while I was reading this in
high school, we had to read the story of Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse, which is basically it's a novel, but
it talks a little bit about Buddhism and this guy
(48:31):
that's near the Buddha in his life and he goes
through a spiritual journey. He starts off too hard, then
it goes all the way left, and then all the
way right, and somewhere in the middle was the right
place for him. And then there's someone else in his
story going all the way with this direction, all the
way and we have to remember that our paths are
all different. Oh yeah, and then extreme is not always
(48:51):
the case. Extreme this or that is not always helpful either.
And so from that point on, my teacher is like, oh,
you really compare this a lot to Daoism. Maybe you
should look into Buddhism. I was like, I'm not a Buddhism,
a Daoism. But the next chapter in our mom's book
was Buddhism, and there's the famous statue of emaciated Buddha
(49:12):
when he had gone all the way too far to
self denial and hurting himself and not eating and not
breathing too far, and I was like, oh, this is
not for me. I like food, I like to eat.
I don't like this. But then I read something called
the dependent origination. How one thing leads to another, another
(49:33):
thing leads to another, and this is how we get here.
But if you can cut that first root, you can
end your suffering. And it just made me cry because
it was an answer. Finally, why do we suffer? Because
our own minds. We create this desire, We have this anger,
we have this ignorance, we have hate. We don't understand
how the world works. We always want more. We're never
(49:56):
satisfy with what we have. We hate what we don't understand,
repulsed by things. So all these factors that are in us,
like almost inherently, and you realize that you some people
say karma, right, but it's really everything you say and
think and do causes everything that Your life is.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Like a boomerang.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Everything you say and think and do creates the world
that you have. That's it, that's it. You're in control
of your own destiny. Yeah, So think about what you say,
think about what you do, think about how you react,
think about what you're putting out there, think about what
you're taking in there when you start getting jealous, something
(50:46):
like jealousy, you know, it's like money. I'm me most
important person. Everyone's the most important person to themselves. Main
character syndrome exactly, exactly, and also the quite opposite, the
self deprecation, the imposter syndrome stuff. That's also something that
you do to yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
That we create all mental, all mental, and that.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Our our inner state mental state projects onto the how
we see the world. So depending on how your mind is,
that's how you're going to see the world. Are you
going to only see problems? Are you going to see
solutions or opportunities? Are you going to see jealousy for
someone getting an award? Are you going to say did
it good for her? I can't believe when you rejoice
(51:32):
on other people's happiness and their success as if it
were your own, then you'll you'll always be happy.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
It's like you're attracting what you're putting out.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, and that's why you're seeing it that way, you know,
because that could be you if you want that, sure,
just keep keep to yourself, keep happy, keep your focus
on remembering that we're our purpose here is to be
happy and to make other people happy and focus on others.
When you folks on others, you're never going to be
(52:02):
worried about what you don't have, what you don't like,
what somebody did to you.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Oh no, you found a secret. You don't tap into
some other shit that I want from myself.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Buddha found it twenty five hundred years ago, The Doctor
of the Mind. You know, I'm in science.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
I need to get out the dog. No offense.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
You are the light, be the light.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I love that. What are you working on right now?
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Oh? Right now, I'm working on a project with the
Seven Sons music. There are modern classical quartets that mixes
extreme metal programming composition but with strings. So I'm working
on that. We have three of the best drummers in
the world. I can't reveal who they are yet, on that.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Three are the best drummers in the world.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, three, well, three of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
So okay, well, you know you're my favorite or your favorite.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
And it's the It's based on the Tibetan Book of
the Dead of Liberation through hearing what happens as you
die when you die, you know, nice light comedy pop
chart summerhead of the Year.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
That are you going to be going on tour or
are you working on the project or what are you
doing with them?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
No, tour first. Right now, we're just working on the
arrangement and getting the right editing and everything done for that,
because it's a pretty big undertaking when you have an
orchestra and how do you record?
Speaker 1 (53:23):
How do you record this?
Speaker 2 (53:24):
We are trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
In my mind, I'm like, what.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Because it's so because it's such a mishmash of the
two different styles. Someone that's great at recording metal may
not be great at recording classical and vice versa. We
have I can say we have Rachel Barton Pine, one
of the best, if not the best, classical violinist in
the world. Wow, there's a cadenza there that will break
your heart. And that's just with her violin. She'll make
(53:47):
you cry.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
I'm excited for he Yes, it's.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
It's like nothing I've ever done before.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
I'm going to make sure we're connected to sucking experiences.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yes, hopefully we'll be doing it live a Lincoln Center
or something like I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah, you have to don't play with me. I don't
play with me in your own section.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Nah, man, I'm super proud of you. I love this conversation.
This conversation touched in areas and ways that I feel
like after forty episodes we haven't touched.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Wow. Thank well. I'm honored to be a part of this.
I'm so happy and surprised. You know that you asked me,
and I'm just so proud that you are amplifying our
voices and our stories and we are at a time,
especially now, that we really need it. And I hope
someone out there is inspired, you know, gets inspired and
learn something new, or goes for their dreams, their goals
(54:35):
and knowing that they're not alone in this.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
You know, this is my purpose right now.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yes, and so fulfilling it and so thank you for
letting me be a small part of it.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
You're a big part of it. I love you. I'm
glad that we met, and you know, I want to
wish you good luck on everything that you're working on.
I'm going to make sure we're connected. And thank you
for bringing in, you know, such amazing and positive energy
into the room. I didn't know what to expect, but
I am delightfully surprised.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Listen, thank you, and
I brought this little bag with me. Here, this cute
little bag here from my little girl Maya, who I
helped her. Last year she was on America Scott Talent.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, she got to play heavy metal guitar wearing her
Indian sadi and got to be herself and only the
tenures Maya Maya.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, I gotta find her. I gotta track her down too,
because that's amazing. What you're doing out here is big
and thanks for passing it down, you know, to the
younger generation.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah, that's what we have to do.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Our presentation matters.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
We have to kick down the doors and light the
way for them seriously.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
And on that note, Grassiers Come Again, Thank you, Bye bye.
Grassiers Come Again is a production of Honey German Productions
in partnership with Iheart's Mike When Podcast Network
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