August 16, 2023 • 54 mins
In the final episode of the show, Khalil and Ben talk with Chicago poet laureate avery r. young. He’s the multitalented interdisciplinary artist behind the podcast’s theme song, ‘Lil Lillie.’ They discuss the story behind the song and how racial justice influences his work. Ben and Khalil also reflect on their time working on this show.
To check out avery r. young’s work, go to his website: https://www.averyryoung.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushing God, Lily, your kinfold, what's your baby daddy's coming?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Go your baby daddies too shame and or criminal to stay.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I'm Khalil Jbron Muhammad.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm Ben Austin. We are two best friends, one black,
one white.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
some of my best friends are wait.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Khalil, this is our last episode of the season, and
I'm starting to figure something out. Some of my best
friends are like, we're best friends, but it's also like
that racist thing that people say, or that prejudice thing.
You know, some of my best friends are. It's a
double meaning.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You've just figured this out.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
What a great title. In this show, we wrestle with
the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and
unequal country.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
And yep, you said it. This is our last episode
of the season. Man, what a journey it's been this year.
But what a fitting way to come back to where
it all started with Lil Lily and the man behind
that magical song that just always makes me really feel
good about this show.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, you're hearing that right now. And we are
so excited to have Avery R. Young with us. He's
the Poet Laureate of Chicago, the sound of this show,
and just an amazingly talented soul. We're going to talk
to him about his work as an interdisciplinary artist and educator,
and of course how it all comes back to Chicago. Avery,
(02:14):
what's up man? It is so good to have you
on the show. Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, this is a full circle moment
for some of my best friends.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Are yes, you all for having me.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
And hey, congratulations, I'm being named the first Poet Laureate
of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's so crazy. Every time people say that, I'm like,
thank you so much, thank you so much. It's honored
to be here. And yeah, because y'all don't don't don't don't.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
That's right, that's right. So you know what I was
going to say is I knew you back when before,
before you were all this hot stuff Poet laureate. Yeah,
and your song Lil Lily, I was, I was. I
was the one who introduced Khalil to it, and we
wanted a Chicago artist, that's right. And and that song,
you know, it's funky way like, it's so emotional and
(03:13):
honest in a lot of ways and alive and every
time I hear it, I moved. I'm like, I'm physically moved,
and so yeah, that that's that's why I sort of like,
you know, we started considering it and I presented to
Khalil and we were like, yeah, this is it, this
is it.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, man, yeah, I appreciate it. Well listen you uh
you passed the first litmus test on on this side
of the Some of my best friends are with Little
Lily because I played it for my wife Stephanie and
she was like, oh man, that is hot. So that
that that made it. That made it a done deal,
and we are just so grateful in so many ways. Avery.
(03:51):
Our show has always had you as a sonic partner.
Is a better way to part it?
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Love it?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I mean I think that I think that was the
fit of the song in the show, because I mean
the lyric content that song is heavy.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
That's so that's that's something that I want to know
a little bit more about. I mean, you know, what
is the story behind the song?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh goodness, the story behind the song is so the
song is on a record called Tubman, and Tubman is
like the sonic poems that I couldn't put in a
book right, and the book Neckbone right, so I had
(04:38):
Neckbone is full of visual and traditional verse. And then
there's these Then there was these sounds that I were
hearing or the songs whatever I was hearing that I
wouldn't you can't put in the book.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
So I was like, well, let me put it in that.
Let me put it in the record. And the lily
is in response to a poem in the book about
my mother.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And so toy Derrecott, who's a wonderful, wonderful writer and
mentor from from the d.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
From the Choice one time her her.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Assignment to me was to write something in my Darkest Ink,
and little Lily is one of those pieces that I
think is from my darkest Ink.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
So we asked like, yeah, what's the dynamic between you
and your mom? What's the story you want to tell
about her.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
I'm my mama's favorite, I'm a first child, I'm her
only boy. We are definitely definitely definitely too blue and
tight like blue, and we were all of us were
raised by.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Her, her aunt, which is like my big mama, which
is you know, it's it's a really complicated situations.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
That word, that's that word, because that's the best hooks
of the song that is confident.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's really it's really complicated. It's lads, just as a
testament to a lot of how we how we love
and how we support, support and take care of each other.
So my mother is special needs, and the phone really
is really kind of really tackling this, this me being
a product of sexual abuse, you know, and like they
(06:28):
have been mothers who was like they can't deal with
the child, so they you know, and then then there's
been cases where they over loved, if that's that's a
word to compensate. So there's this trauma that the baby,
the baby was in and for my sisters and I,
we just just really felt like normal because we didn't
(06:49):
feel unloved in any in any shape, form and fashion.
This was just what our family was shaped into and
the normality of it is just it was just very normal.
This is what it is, a mental disability or cognitive issue.
Don't make her less your mother. That's biology, you know,
(07:14):
that's biology.
Speaker 7 (07:15):
You know.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
This woman who is her?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Who is her aunt stepped in to raise her after
my uncle brought my mother to her house as my
grandmother was dealing with substance abuse and the guilt of
you know, the story of it was the substance abuse
that did this to her child, right, yes, yes, and
(07:40):
that's a thing that she can't handle, right. So she
gives the child to her to her son, and he's like,
but I'm nineteen and I had this other life, the
rest of his life that I have to live. I
can't deal with a special needs child. So he didn't
give the baby to his mother's sister or his aunt.
And she takes the baby in, she raises the baby
(08:04):
is her own, and then that baby's all of a
sudden start popping up with children, you know, and like
what do we do.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
We love them and we raise them as they our own,
and we keep them as you know, a family. And
that's that's the that's the that's the story.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And there is a yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing all
of that. Avery. So let's let's just break this down
a little bit with the song lyrics. So little Lily
is your mom, and she has special needs. She was
raised by her aunt because her mother suffered from drug addiction.
And while your aunt was away at work, your mom
was sexually abused. And so you sing it's complicated, because
(08:43):
this is a complicated story, and really this is a
song as a tribute, uh to your mother who you
love dealing.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
That's you know, that's the story in the sense. And
then what you do with a song like Little Lily is.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You you can you sing? Can you sing a little
love bit? Avery?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Because I sing a little bit? It goes hey lily
song can folk don't need to be slow.
Speaker 8 (09:12):
Ba bunk Mamma married on off to work, now her
house and stays, and.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Lily your kinfold, what's your baby daddy's coming?
Speaker 8 (09:29):
Go your baby daddies to shame and or criminal to stay?
Boom boom hell lily boom.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Don't think guy's been and efficient shield boom boom.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
So may it is song.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Service you was swore boom above a dog, don't bunk
hell Lily, doom doom.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
You know nobody can do you like jeeves boom boom,
bump bump. You know no, I'm gonna do you like
the love. That's so funny that the lyric, because that's
the song she used to sing in shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
She was singing the song like nodding, like Jesus, like Lord,
she's seen it.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
So that's how that okay, And little Lily is.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Your mother, Lily is my mother? Yes, mother Mary going
off to work. That's the great eyes.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yes, all right, all right, Oh my god, my hair
was standing on in Oh I was.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I was so moved.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That's just so beautiful. And and your ability to not
only sing so amazingly, but you had the funk going,
you had the bass player.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
That was.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah, that's that song, as you just described, both in
its intonation, in the in the rhythms and grooves, and
and also in the actual lyrics, speak so much to
the church and to gospel. And your band is called
the Deacon Board. So so talk about your musical background,
your influences, the role of church, and your music.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Wow, the musical background has come from very musical family.
Everybody plays a lot, well, everybody doesn't play.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
A lot of us do play. It is there's a lot.
Everybody sings though, that's the thing that everybody does. Everybody sings.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And we grew up in church, but also grew we
also grew up in the household where if Mary Booker
was listening to me Halea Jackson, all the children were
listening to Millie Jackson.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Chicago Gospel, Great Uh and an R and b. Greade,
I got it, so it.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Was always, it was always, but I've never and then
I grew up not necessarily understanding the difference in the two.
Like you, it was that one thing you sing, you
sing in church, and it's one thing that's playing on
the radio. But if you really, if you, if you
stand still right and you understand vibrations like it's it's
(12:22):
it's from the same place. They thumping church just like
they thumping on this Millie Jackson.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Record. They crooning in church just like they're crooling on
the Millie Jackson record. All of that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Understanding the narrative of life through the lyric of song
and through the thump of our foot and hip bone
and the conditions in which people live and then create in.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Spite of those conditions is it's always.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
It's fascinating me and it plays out through the work.
So then growing up with that ass an influence, I
just bring more of that. I'm just bringing I'm just
continuing that conversation. Martie Gaines is definitely definitely an influence
as far as music it's concerned Gill Scott Hearing, because
Gill Scot Hearing taught me the possibility of that the
song still houses a poem.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
The songs the poem that's really powerfully said.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Rights for the fact that you could be you know,
what is a song with without bravery?
Speaker 5 (13:26):
House doesn't stand without courage, you know. So that's what
I need, that's what.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Falls in well well, Avery, I just want to say,
like hearing all those influences certainly show up in your music.
And I think, you know, for us and for our listeners, uh,
for the fans of some of my best friends are
we have benefited so much from all those influences in
the way that you have captured the sacred in the secular. So, uh,
(13:53):
we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're going to talk a bit more about your artistry.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
We'll be right back. We are back on some of
my best friends with the amazing Avery Are Young. Avery,
I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the first time we met,
(14:22):
which was a bunch of years ago, and it was
at an art opening in Chicago, and you were doing
visual art at that time, a sculpture and you were
presenting this sculpture which was a noose, an actual noose,
and at the bottom of it were skittles sort of
scattered around it.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That was my first solo exhibition, and so a lot
of the visual text work was in relationship to it.
At the time, what was the murder in the trial
of trayvon Martin. I just really wanted to think about
(15:06):
the materials, just the material the caves did a lot
of studying about what was going on and then try
to implement that ended the materiars used inside.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
Of the.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And trayvon Martin as he was walking in his in
his neighborhood, he had gone to the store to buy skittles.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Yes, yes, skittles.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
So in your exhibit you see this noose and it's
like ten feet off the ground, and it's made out
of blue jeans, like torn up blue jeans, the entire noose,
and it extends on one end all the way to
the floor where it meets empty bags of skittles, and
then the candy skittles spread out all on the floor.
(15:51):
Can you can you tell us you know how you
made this, like you're you're thinking behind it.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
So we took I took the.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Jeans and I kind of ripped them up, and then
my friend Chuld had sold them to so they were
like this one long piece, and then we soaked it and.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Arizona Arizona iced teas and all kinds.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I just stuck a bunch of it, soaked them in
that for a couple of days, and then once we
got the once that got it, dried it for a
minute and then began.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
To do the work of.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Twisted it so that it would look like a rope
and what the sugar and I mean the sugar in
the drinks would help bind, yes, yes, and we're singing
that that would happen, and like it worked, and I
was like, and then we went about the business of
(16:52):
time the noose and I remember like that day every
other day it was. It was it was really hard
that I cut off. I cut off the lights and
I kept listening to a strange fruit over and over,
and I kept listening, and so I listened to three
different versions replay, and that was the Howard Day's version,
(17:15):
and it was this and Mimes Simon's version and Cassandra
Wilson's version, and I just listened to those in a
loop and kind of took my time to to.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Tad News and I.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Could avery, yeah, I mean this idea that you captured
of Trayvon Martin also being lynched, and this is my
first introduction to you, and I'm seeing this and this
powerful visual art, and then I'm thinking about, well, who
is this guy? What what is his artistry? And then
that same night you performed Resurrect Fred, which is really
(17:56):
performance art. It's a song and more than that, and
I was like, Oh, this guy isn't just a visual artist.
He is this you know, multi varied performance artist. Like
there's so much there's something else going on here. And
so this Resurrect Fred is about Fred Hampton, who is
the twenty one year old Black panther leader who was
(18:16):
murdered by police in nineteen sixty nine. He was sleeping
in his home in the early morning and they raided
and they murder him. And you know, maybe we could
just talk about that piece for a moment. What does
it mean to resurrect Fred?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Here we go back to this gospel and attachment, this
attachment to the church. A lot of what influences, especially
as a performance artist, is preaching and a certain and
seeing how a person with certain cadence and power and
confidence and knowledge of a word inscripture and history presents
(18:55):
this literature which is what you know, a Bible was
full of poems. Fred is definitely from rooted in the
scripture of the Resuscitation of Lazarus, who at the time,
there's a there's a description in the Bible says Jesus
wept right and it's kind of the.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Only noted recording of the weeping.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But always like why, you know, because he was he
had lost a good friend, and the community lost a
very good friend and ally and advocate them when they
lost Chairman Fred and all the others got lost. That
was within that within that time, we're talking about very
violent political time in American history, and Chairman Fred was
(19:42):
definitely not the only person who was slain in this time.
But the idea at the end of the day that
was just these young black people that wanted better for
their community.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
You know, we talked about we talked about the guns and.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And them protected community with artillery, but they were also
waking up in the morning, fixing breakfast and serving it
to the panthers, and they be in the Black Panthers.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
So song resurrect Fred is let's let's let's get that together.
So that's what I wane when I'm saying resurrect Fred.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yes, that's it's about the resurrection of that work, that
work that is happening or what was happening in the
communities with the Black Panthers, and that's how that that's
how they comes about coming.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So Avery, I didn't meet you that way, and and
this is my first time really getting to know you
in this personal way, and I'm just really grateful for
this opportunity. But I did get a chance to see
Emmett till the Remix, which is a video performance that
(20:51):
that that you've done, and I mean it's like it's
incredible and in a way that speaks directly to what
you describe with resurrect Fred, meaning that here is this
this young man who's killed in uh mississipp be Uh.
His killing inspires an entire generation of civil rights activists,
(21:15):
and you tell the entire story of what happened to
him in this performance.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You you you call back to actually the presence of
the community at the time that they bear witness and
it's really powerful to see in the video. But could
you could you set the context for what you do
(21:41):
in I Matilda Remix by singing a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Of it for us, man, we are getting our money's
worth there, man, ohn is such an it is such
a space.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
And again.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
We are you there.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
When they did what they did to that ball?
Speaker 8 (22:15):
Where there.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
When they did what they did to that ball? Were
you there when they snatched the mile? It was her
uncle's house? Well you're there, they snatched the mile to
(22:43):
your uncle's high?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Is this him?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Is this skill?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Is this him?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Is this skim missage?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Is this shame?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Is this.
Speaker 8 (23:05):
Hum?
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Whoa care?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Man?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Thank you that that that that were you there? That
you part like you're telling the story and it's bearing witness,
but it also feels like an accusation, like you were
you there? Tell us about that? Like that you're you're
putting a burden on us too.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Yeah, that particular peace is.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Flipping around a hem or spiritual about the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ. Where you're there when they crucify the Lord.
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble where you're there
when they crucified the Lord? And again I actually were
you there to be a witness?
Speaker 4 (24:00):
You know this?
Speaker 5 (24:01):
It's placing it, it's.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Doing this thing that Gwyndolan Brooks does and we real
coul right, the womans and they real cool. They left school.
And by using the language we it implicates any and
everybody that reads it. So you're one of the seven.
You're one of the seven at the goal of the shovel, right,
And so using that language where you there, even if
(24:26):
you weren't born in a time right, you get through,
You get through this journey, where you get through this language,
bear witness to this murder. And the sad part of
it is just like when you hear I've talked about
it and Mantel Trayvon Martin. You know, because you keep
(24:49):
seeing this level of racial terrorism repeated and repeated us.
It gets repeated throughout the song.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, Avery, I just have to say, for folks who
haven't seen this video, which we will, we will most
certainly link to for the show, that everything you've been
describing in terms of like the mashup of the past.
You've talked about biblical times, you're talking about the time
of Jesus' crucifixion, You've talked about the time of the
civil rights movement. And in this video you stand alone
(25:19):
first in a church as a song begins, just as
you started here singing today and yet all of a sudden,
the scenery changes and it shifts from a church with
you as a single person singing out loud in a
kind of plaintiff cry, to a civil rights march, and
they're signed. You're surrounded by people with I Am a
man signs, and then the scene shifts again and you're
(25:41):
at a Black Lives Matter rally. And what comes through
in this video performance is precisely your call to recognize
the past in the present and the need as you
say at the end of this song, when you call
out who's gonna live, Who's gonna live? Who's gonna live
for Emmet, which is to say, who's gonna live today
(26:03):
for the people who continue to suffer from racism in America?
It's just so powerful And who's to fight for?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That's one of the lines too, celebrating the life of
a person who is no longer with us, and then
celebrating my life of a person who still is. The
idea that length of that particular line, Who's going to
live is what you do in this body that will
continue to tell the continue to tell the story of
(26:31):
this person who couldn't And that's just the thing we
feel with a lot of people feel anger. It gives
us questions and give the particular that image Til like
being said, sparked a whole and inspired a whole level
of civil rights movement. Rosa Parks has noted to say
(26:53):
that that's who she was thinking of actually stay in
her seat on the bus.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Muhammad Ali talked.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
About learning about Immin Tell and seeing the image in
it on the on the front page of a newspaper
and all all of these things that have that particular
death moves people to so many different motions and then
they get to that last line, but who's gonna leave?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, Yeah, such a such a powerful way to keep
the memory of Emmettel present in the ongoing struggle for
a new generation of young people who have been fighting
against this problem. We're gonna take another break, and when
we come back, we're gonna talk about you as poet laureate.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
We'll be right back, man, Avery, We are back on
some of my best friends. I thank you so much.
(27:58):
This has been just incredible and Khalil, I have had
the great fortune of seeing Avery performing person, and it
is this mix of all these things. It's visual our
it's dance, it's preaching, it's spoken word, it's poetry. Mostly
I'm you know, it's off in participatory and I'm off
in there and I'm thinking, don't pick me, don't pick me.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
No, no, no no, You're like you're like you're like
your leg star.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
You can't. Before I'm told, I was like, thank god
you didn't pull me into the center.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Called up to the podium.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yes, so Avery, you know, we've we've heard your poetry
today in song. But you're you're now the poet Laureate
of Chicago, and let's talk about that.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
What is that?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
What does that job entail? What have you been doing
for these last several weeks.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I've been doing a lot of readings at this point,
but I plan to do a lot of community building
so and get calls, Hey, you've been you, You've been like,
it's gonna be you.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
It's like all.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Smack is like a bad signal, like a poetry.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It was hilarious because I had just had lunch with
Eve you and it was like my niece and I
was telling her friends, so yes, and I was telling Eve,
you know, I think it's gonna be you, like I
dominated you, and he was like no.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I was talking to Jamila, Sila would Tomila Wood is
another amazing Chicago musician and artists.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And poet right and they both like these young women
who you know, with the wrestle of a generation of
artists in Chicago, who I've mentored and talked and like
I said, and just in community with. But I got
the news and I was like really like excited and honored,
(29:59):
and like the coolest part is be being the innamural one.
I get to figure it out, you know, and really
set up shop for those who who will follow as
poet lauriate. And like I said right now, a lot
of it has really been reading the inaugurate, the inauguration,
(30:21):
the juneteen celebration. I just did the l A A conference,
American Library Association conference. So a lot of it has been,
you know, reading in my capacity support laureate. But a
lot of the work would be with just build a
community and get in Chicago to write poems together and things.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Of that nature.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You you evoked Gwendolyn Brooks earlier and when we were
in like middle school, Uh, she was the Illinois Poet laureate. Yes,
and I just remember what it meant to have her
presence being around that she would like show up at
the school and people talked about it, and she was
somebody that that was you saw and that her poems
(31:01):
you cited. We real cool. They felt accessible, they felt
like they were about the city. She's in Africa, an
American woman, she was, she was older, she felt like
an ant to a lot of people. And yeah, and
I just you know that idea. So that's a kind
(31:21):
of rule.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I get to go to schools and you know, get
to go to schools, like I said, and I really
want to get students together to write with each other,
you know, and write and write these massive or epic
poems with each other, you know, and not just be
about me coming to the school and saying, hey, I'm
every young and I'm the Chicago Poet Laureate, but really
building community ways in which so many other organizations who
(31:45):
I've worked with in the past is done. So Bama
Gwenland definitely has set the set, the tone and precedent
of how I would believe to kind of show up
and be present during my tenure as laureate. But I
also understand that I have to take I have I
have to also craft it to be my own so
(32:07):
that when you're people had this memory decades from now,
I remember, well, uncle, yes, and be the thing and
all of your stuff, and people will talk about me
the way they talk about her.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, so so you have this, you have this book
of poetry called neck Bone, and you you subtitle it
visual Versus. So so let's talk about about that, because clearly,
as a multidisciplinary artist, you cannot keep your brain working
on one track.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
So it's full up up in the brain between the eyes.
I'm like, oh, but that was even the.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Point, so I think when well, for me, mm hmm,
the the poem that you see on the page is
extracted language.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
It's language that you pick from.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
All the words and all the imagery that's going on
in your brain and inside your imagination. I keep, I
keep trying to talk about this and not sound like
it's just voodoo. Yes, it's just like that is that
is with intent. But so that the idea of then
(33:29):
just being transparent of how I see a poem as
opposed to extracting the language from what I see, is
why how visual visual versus come.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I'm a little just showing what I see.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
M favery, You're giving us like a view into how
your mind is working. Which yeah, I think I think
these poems do, which is you're having a conversation, often
with received images, like with pop culture, of things that
are important to you. And so there's like this triangulation
that's going on, and then it's sort of visual for you,
and then it's being turned into words.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
But it's also can I just say it's also the
book has seventy colorful colored illustrations, So this isn't you're
not speaking purely in attraction. You actually have drawn in
the book. You've used your artistic visual talent to actually
put in the book illustrations in a book of poetry,
which is unusual for most for most poets, and.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
The words are often the text is often part of
like a painting or a drawing. I want to I
want to ask you a question about your work, and
both your work is poet laureate of Chicago, and really
all you're at work in a way you're reimagining Chicago
and telling a Chicago story. And I want to ask
(34:50):
you that, like, what is the story of Chicago that
you're trying to change and reinterpret and reinvent.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I don't necessarily I'm reinventing or reimagine in Chicago. I
think I present the Chicago that I experience, Okay, and
I do experience Chicago a lot of times through my
imagination or in the context of others imagination, because I'm
part of the creative community. Right when you hear about
Chicago through the media and then the quote unquote the news,
(35:20):
you see, you see the Chicago that I just don't experience, right,
And not that I don't realize that it's there, because
again with the babies I've talked, I've been, I've been
sitting there, I've sung at funerals of students I had
talked two weeks prior, you know, so that I understand
and totally am aware of the whatever the news says
(35:43):
about Chicago, which is basically the violence, in the in
the weather. That's wacky, wacky and quacky, you know. But
I also get to experience people in community, one another,
the extended family.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
When I say Eve and Jamila like my nieces, they
are truly like my nieces.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
And then we ain't have no we have no biological
connection to each other, but the extension and the extension
of family is you know, I have a very diverse
dinner table, you know. And again as we treated and
love each other's family. So I'm trying to present the
Chicago that I get. But the work is always or
(36:24):
why not. The work is really in the imagination.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
When I tell students write what you know I was,
when they always well, right, what you know? Right right?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
What you know?
Speaker 5 (36:34):
And you know a thing because you've.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Either experienced it, witnessed it, you know, you've researched it
to the point where you feel like you know it
enough to write about it, or the best space of all,
it's just to imagine it, because when you imagine it,
can't nobody tell you they had yours?
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Does it did?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Because I had this way, I said, and so that is,
you know.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
That's what I tell That's really both boss situation, that's
to your imagination. You can implement the things you researched
and the things in which you know, and the things
and what you experienced into the imagination. You're doing something
totally like beyond beyond you know. That's why I teach.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That's just why it's amazing to be inside your imagination,
even for this past, you know, even for this conversation.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Well listen, we've talked a lot about Chicago just now.
But some of my best friends are has taken Lil
Lily International. We have listeners all over the world, so
we are just grateful to be on this journey with you.
You are certainly one of our best friends, and we
(37:53):
are so excited for what is to come for you
in the future. Thank you so much, Avery for joining
us today, for taking some time out and sharing your
artistry with us.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
All right, Khalil, speaking of theme songs, this is our
last episode of the season. Yeah, and also for now
at least, our last episode with the show.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
It's not goodbye, it's farewell. It has been an amazing journey,
at least for me. I don't know about you, but
I want to talk a little bit about the fact
that we have done this show as part of our
own relationship. Like, you know, we've done a lot of
(38:58):
things together over the years, and this show just fits
right in with that. Yeah, and we talked about so
many of those things. But I want to reminisce a
little bit, like you know, we had our first jobs together,
a computer store, a grocery store. You know, we played
tennis together. I learned how to play, you know, oftentimes
competing against you, and I was like thirteen years old,
(39:22):
fourteen years old.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
I'm tearing up a little bit. And the thing, the
thing is, I also taught you how to host a podcast,
and I feel like I'm, you know, teaching you over
so many episodes. It's been that's been a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Of course, of course I feel that way.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I also like memory lane, Like my first poker game
was at your house, My first shibot dinner, first time
I ever researched in a college library was because your
dad sent us there during a teacher strike when we
were fifteen to sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
That's right, crycial decade I got.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I got my first high school girlfriends because of you
and your then high school sweetheart now wife, Daniel Ure
hooking you up, and we stood up in each other's
we weddings. We were there when our first borns came
into the world, not actually at the delivery table, but
like within forty eight hours. The first time I ever
(40:22):
rented a place with Stephanie at Martha's Vineyard without being
like with your parents or with my parents in this case,
guess who was there me?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
That's right, you were there, because I don't remember any
of these things. Well, yes, you do, so this is
important to document it.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I love this well. I just think like in a
way thinking of retrospectively about what's gone on these last
two years, which represents now our thirty seventh year, and
a relationship has also been thinking about our friendship through
this podcast.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Yeah, actually doing this podcast together in this way and
working with you, it's like making meaning out of both
our relationship and our lives and the things we're experiencing
in the world, but making that meaning together. I know
that I I went into writing in a lot of
(41:18):
ways because I wanted to make meaning out of the
world and for this process that that each week, you know,
and sitting down on these on these calls. Uh, we
were doing that together and we're like, we're talking to
each other all the time, like maybe we should have
this person as a guest, or did you read this story,
or what do you think about that? Doing that with
you has been you know, all the work I've done,
(41:41):
this in some ways is the is certainly the most
joyous and a lot of ways the most meaningful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
No, I feel the same way. And I thought you
were going to add to like sitting down for these
calls like the shit ton of work we do because, man,
I mean, I'm pretty sure our listeners will appreciate this,
but we've read a shit ton of books, We've watched
a shit ton of television, we have watched movies multiple times.
(42:08):
Our producers have been and indefatigable in following big words
yeah and following up archival tape so that the show could,
you know, have these beautiful moments.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Can I say something a little darker too? I mean,
we started working on this show about three years ago,
and it was right after George Floyd's murder. It was
in that moment of national reckoning on race. And maybe
that's even we had the show.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
That is exactly one of the reasons we had the show,
like how can you.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Talk about race openly and in a way that feels
honest and you know, two people actually engaging one another
and then to explore all these topics in the country.
And over the course of doing this show, you know,
we've had so much joy, but we've also gone through
during that time this rapid surprising how fast it was, retrenchment,
(43:04):
this backlash. The divides that we talk about have only
become deeper.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
That's right, it does help to think about the fact
that what we talk about is like almost criminal in
a lot of states. I mean, we know for a
fact that we've heard from listeners who are teachers, some
people have stopped you on the street, and like, I
have assigned episodes of Some of My Best Friends Are
(43:31):
to my high school students. And that's in Illinois, of course,
and I know some of that's happened here in New Jersey,
but imagine in Florida and Texas. You know, we had
two really great episodes, one when the attack on critical
race theory in season one first happened, and then we
had one this season which looked at how Governor Ron
DeSantis had in fact helped to draw attention to the
(43:56):
College Board's curriculum so that a national standard, literally an
educational standard of the College Board would not be taught
in Florida and inspired other states for backlash. So, you know,
our show went from being something that had all the
possibility of being part of a transformative moment in American
history to now being a show that could be listed
(44:16):
as a band resource in a whole bunch of school
districts all around the county.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
So you think our show actually caused the backlash.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Well, I have a surprise for you on this point.
So the Barbie movie the runaway hit of the summer. So, dude,
you haven't seen the movie, but guess what. There is
a line in the movie when one of the characters says,
some of my best friends are Jewish. Dude, I'm telling
you when you say our show is part of the backlash.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
We made it.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
We made it into the biggest Hollywood hit of the summer.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
But you raise a really good point, Ben, that it
was our goal to try to offer something in this
moment of existential crisis where people weren't quite sure what
to do as the Trump era was unfolding. We said, like,
(45:12):
we're going to have this conversation and we're gonna we're
gonna each week figure out how to understand and say
something for the rest of the country. And you know,
in many parts of the world where we have listeners,
so that we feel like being able to speak to
what's happening is itself an act of resistance.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And and and to try
to add to the conversation in a in a productive way,
in a meaningful way.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
So I know, I know that every listener has kind
of uh at least at least I've heard, you know,
people have favorite episodes, but I have my own, and
I don't know about you, but I want to hear
a couple of your favorite ones. I I to this
day absolutely love the Interracial Buddy Films episode, like that,
(46:03):
that episode, the conversation about forty eight Hours and Leave
the Weapon, the like scene in that bar scene where
we talk about what's happening when Eddie Murphy like becomes
Nick Nolty's character and takes over the bar. And then
later when you talk about Danny Glover and Mel Gibson
in this orgasmic embrace man that that was just smart.
Good mo, you were really smart.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Well, I'll say, like, I'm gonna speak more generally because
you know, you and I have a rapport and sort
of you know, a casualist. So there's something really fantastic
when people we didn't know that well came on the
show and we're just completely comfortable with us and be
completely open. And you know, there's so many examples of that,
you know, from from Clint Smith to Jay Kang to
Sam Irby, and then you know in our experiences we
(46:48):
know or have come across or have access to, so
many amazing people, so many people who are fascinating and
who are truly our friends in some way. And to
have people on like Avery Today or or Eve Ewing
or Amanda Williams or Zay Dorn killing it, you are
dropping all those Nathie Stewart, my sister, uh Sasha Penn,
(47:11):
you know. But then I have to say that there
are moments for me and maybe this is like the
Buddy Films one that you said when it's just us talking.
And there was a moment when we were doing a
show about comedy.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
And I think it was started The Bad and the Funny, and.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
It started by Dave Chappelle having this Netflix show. But
we decided that we would reveal to one another some
of our favorite comedy moments. And there was a moment
on air while we're recording when it turned out that
we picked the exact same clip. We both picked this
Eddie Murphy skit from Saturday Live. And just like the
(47:49):
joyousness of that moment, the euphoria, like I was just
like giddy that we you know, our minds were working
the same.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Moody and kurrt. If you missed that episode, listeners, go
back and Ben is like a four year old kid,
just so happy. Funny thing is for this conversation. I
actually picked that memory, that memory too.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
Ah see.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
You know, listen, I mean, this is the one opportunity
that we have in two seasons, over two years of episodes,
to share what someone else thought about our show other
than us. And so I'm going to read one listener review,
and of course it's a good one, because who gets
a shit about the ones that hated us?
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Man, So this is very healthy. That's a very healthy
way I would I'm the person that only looks at
the negative one. This is a difference between us too.
Everybody be more like Khalil So.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
From June eighth, twenty twenty three, on the Apple podcast app,
a listener whose hashtag is my alter ego is a
Navy Seal titled their five star review as the Intersection
of Information and Joy. And this is what this listener wrote,
I love this podcast so much. It gives me so
(49:06):
much joy to hear two men speak frankly about the
aspects of a long, beautiful friendship. I want to go
to Martha's vineyard on vacation with these two amazing families.
Carry on with great joy heart emoji. But there's more.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
This listener adds update. As I continue to listen to
this informative, educational, important podcast. May I just say that
nothing on this beautiful, fragile planet brings me more joy
and yes, with a tear in my eye than at
the end when you sign off with I love you, Man,
(49:45):
I love you too, Yes, yes, thank you. My alter
ego is a Navy seal, because in my darkest moments
to come, I will be coming back to this review
to know that we brought some joy in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
That's beautiful. Well, let me ask you. Let me ask
you a kind of thought experiment. As close as we are.
If you could think of anyone else to have done
this podcast with, even even a historical figure, who would
it be? Man?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I think I would have done it with Eddie Murphy?
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Huh interesting? Okay, I got you, Yeah, I got you.
I got you because I would have still chosen you.
That's fucked up, all right, we gotta go see everybody later. Khali, Yeah,
my bad.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
I'm sorry. All right, So listen before we sign off.
We've got a couple more listeners who are gonna leave
us with some parting thoughts.
Speaker 7 (50:48):
Hey, bro, I'm really gonna miss you being in my
closet like twice a week with Khalil. It has been
really awesome to have you guys get to spend this
much time together.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
And I can't wait till see what you guys cook
up next.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
All right, beautiful, that's Khalil's wife, Stephanie. That's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (51:11):
Thank you for that, Ben and Khalil. I can't believe
it's your final episode. Congratulations on your podcast. I'm so
happy the world got to hear just how smart, andsightful
and fucking funny you guys are. I'm privileged because I
get to continue to see your love, friendship, and brotherhood.
(51:33):
Congrats guys.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
That's beautiful. That's my wife, Danielle. And the beautiful part
of the podcast is she still has so many episodes
to catch up on so she can enjoy this for
years to come.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Well, I can't speak on that, but I can say
that they were part of the show for sure, and
I think if we were going to thank you, at
least a couple people beyond our producers and the Pushkin family,
I think we had to give it up to Stephanie
and Danielle.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
The loves of our lives.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
That's right, Yeah, that's right, all right man. Well, I'm
sorry that I would have chosen Eddie Murphy if I
had to do this again, but you know I did.
There's a trick question.
Speaker 4 (52:19):
There are no trick questions. There are no trick questions,
only only revealing our true selves.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
The truth is that there's no substitute for you, and
and this has been an amazing run. And yeah, I
guess no surprises here.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
I love you, man, I'll see you on the other side.
Love you too.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Jabron Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 4 (52:55):
It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.
It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Keyshell Williams.
Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our managing producer
is Constanza Guyardo.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
At Pushkin thanks to Leitol, Molad, Julia Barton, Heather Fein,
Carly Migliori, John Schnarz, Greta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 4 (53:19):
Our theme song, Little Lily is by fellow Chicaguan the
brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman. You definitely
want to check out his music at his website, Averyaryong
dot com.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin
Pods and you can sign up for our newsletter at
pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen. Even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about it. Thank you, Sir
Speaker 3 (54:14):
MHM
Pushing God, Lily, your kinfold, what's your baby daddy's coming?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Go your baby daddies too shame and or criminal to stay.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I'm Khalil Jbron Muhammad.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
I'm Ben Austin. We are two best friends, one black,
one white.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
some of my best friends are wait.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Khalil, this is our last episode of the season, and
I'm starting to figure something out. Some of my best
friends are like, we're best friends, but it's also like
that racist thing that people say, or that prejudice thing.
You know, some of my best friends are. It's a
double meaning.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You've just figured this out.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
What a great title. In this show, we wrestle with
the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and
unequal country.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
And yep, you said it. This is our last episode
of the season. Man, what a journey it's been this year.
But what a fitting way to come back to where
it all started with Lil Lily and the man behind
that magical song that just always makes me really feel
good about this show.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, you're hearing that right now. And we are
so excited to have Avery R. Young with us. He's
the Poet Laureate of Chicago, the sound of this show,
and just an amazingly talented soul. We're going to talk
to him about his work as an interdisciplinary artist and educator,
and of course how it all comes back to Chicago. Avery,
(02:14):
what's up man? It is so good to have you
on the show. Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, this is a full circle moment
for some of my best friends.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Are yes, you all for having me.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
And hey, congratulations, I'm being named the first Poet Laureate
of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's so crazy. Every time people say that, I'm like,
thank you so much, thank you so much. It's honored
to be here. And yeah, because y'all don't don't don't don't.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
That's right, that's right. So you know what I was
going to say is I knew you back when before,
before you were all this hot stuff Poet laureate. Yeah,
and your song Lil Lily, I was, I was. I
was the one who introduced Khalil to it, and we
wanted a Chicago artist, that's right. And and that song,
you know, it's funky way like, it's so emotional and
(03:13):
honest in a lot of ways and alive and every
time I hear it, I moved. I'm like, I'm physically moved,
and so yeah, that that's that's why I sort of like,
you know, we started considering it and I presented to
Khalil and we were like, yeah, this is it, this
is it.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, man, yeah, I appreciate it. Well listen you uh
you passed the first litmus test on on this side
of the Some of my best friends are with Little
Lily because I played it for my wife Stephanie and
she was like, oh man, that is hot. So that
that that made it. That made it a done deal,
and we are just so grateful in so many ways. Avery.
(03:51):
Our show has always had you as a sonic partner.
Is a better way to part it?
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Love it?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I mean I think that I think that was the
fit of the song in the show, because I mean
the lyric content that song is heavy.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
That's so that's that's something that I want to know
a little bit more about. I mean, you know, what
is the story behind the song?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh goodness, the story behind the song is so the
song is on a record called Tubman, and Tubman is
like the sonic poems that I couldn't put in a
book right, and the book Neckbone right, so I had
(04:38):
Neckbone is full of visual and traditional verse. And then
there's these Then there was these sounds that I were
hearing or the songs whatever I was hearing that I
wouldn't you can't put in the book.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
So I was like, well, let me put it in that.
Let me put it in the record. And the lily
is in response to a poem in the book about
my mother.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And so toy Derrecott, who's a wonderful, wonderful writer and
mentor from from the d.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
From the Choice one time her her.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Assignment to me was to write something in my Darkest Ink,
and little Lily is one of those pieces that I
think is from my darkest Ink.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
So we asked like, yeah, what's the dynamic between you
and your mom? What's the story you want to tell
about her.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
I'm my mama's favorite, I'm a first child, I'm her
only boy. We are definitely definitely definitely too blue and
tight like blue, and we were all of us were
raised by.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Her, her aunt, which is like my big mama, which
is you know, it's it's a really complicated situations.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
That word, that's that word, because that's the best hooks
of the song that is confident.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's really it's really complicated. It's lads, just as a
testament to a lot of how we how we love
and how we support, support and take care of each other.
So my mother is special needs, and the phone really
is really kind of really tackling this, this me being
a product of sexual abuse, you know, and like they
(06:28):
have been mothers who was like they can't deal with
the child, so they you know, and then then there's
been cases where they over loved, if that's that's a
word to compensate. So there's this trauma that the baby,
the baby was in and for my sisters and I,
we just just really felt like normal because we didn't
(06:49):
feel unloved in any in any shape, form and fashion.
This was just what our family was shaped into and
the normality of it is just it was just very normal.
This is what it is, a mental disability or cognitive issue.
Don't make her less your mother. That's biology, you know,
(07:14):
that's biology.
Speaker 7 (07:15):
You know.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
This woman who is her?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Who is her aunt stepped in to raise her after
my uncle brought my mother to her house as my
grandmother was dealing with substance abuse and the guilt of
you know, the story of it was the substance abuse
that did this to her child, right, yes, yes, and
(07:40):
that's a thing that she can't handle, right. So she
gives the child to her to her son, and he's like,
but I'm nineteen and I had this other life, the
rest of his life that I have to live. I
can't deal with a special needs child. So he didn't
give the baby to his mother's sister or his aunt.
And she takes the baby in, she raises the baby
(08:04):
is her own, and then that baby's all of a
sudden start popping up with children, you know, and like
what do we do.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
We love them and we raise them as they our own,
and we keep them as you know, a family. And
that's that's the that's the that's the story.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And there is a yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing all
of that. Avery. So let's let's just break this down
a little bit with the song lyrics. So little Lily
is your mom, and she has special needs. She was
raised by her aunt because her mother suffered from drug addiction.
And while your aunt was away at work, your mom
was sexually abused. And so you sing it's complicated, because
(08:43):
this is a complicated story, and really this is a
song as a tribute, uh to your mother who you
love dealing.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
That's you know, that's the story in the sense. And
then what you do with a song like Little Lily is.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
You you can you sing? Can you sing a little
love bit? Avery?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Because I sing a little bit? It goes hey lily
song can folk don't need to be slow.
Speaker 8 (09:12):
Ba bunk Mamma married on off to work, now her
house and stays, and.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Lily your kinfold, what's your baby daddy's coming?
Speaker 8 (09:29):
Go your baby daddies to shame and or criminal to stay?
Boom boom hell lily boom.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Don't think guy's been and efficient shield boom boom.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
So may it is song.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Service you was swore boom above a dog, don't bunk
hell Lily, doom doom.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
You know nobody can do you like jeeves boom boom,
bump bump. You know no, I'm gonna do you like
the love. That's so funny that the lyric, because that's
the song she used to sing in shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
She was singing the song like nodding, like Jesus, like Lord,
she's seen it.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
So that's how that okay, And little Lily is.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Your mother, Lily is my mother? Yes, mother Mary going
off to work. That's the great eyes.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yes, all right, all right, Oh my god, my hair
was standing on in Oh I was.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
I was so moved.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That's just so beautiful. And and your ability to not
only sing so amazingly, but you had the funk going,
you had the bass player.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
That was.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah, that's that song, as you just described, both in
its intonation, in the in the rhythms and grooves, and
and also in the actual lyrics, speak so much to
the church and to gospel. And your band is called
the Deacon Board. So so talk about your musical background,
your influences, the role of church, and your music.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Wow, the musical background has come from very musical family.
Everybody plays a lot, well, everybody doesn't play.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
A lot of us do play. It is there's a lot.
Everybody sings though, that's the thing that everybody does. Everybody sings.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And we grew up in church, but also grew we
also grew up in the household where if Mary Booker
was listening to me Halea Jackson, all the children were
listening to Millie Jackson.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Chicago Gospel, Great Uh and an R and b. Greade,
I got it, so it.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Was always, it was always, but I've never and then
I grew up not necessarily understanding the difference in the two.
Like you, it was that one thing you sing, you
sing in church, and it's one thing that's playing on
the radio. But if you really, if you, if you
stand still right and you understand vibrations like it's it's
(12:22):
it's from the same place. They thumping church just like
they thumping on this Millie Jackson.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Record. They crooning in church just like they're crooling on
the Millie Jackson record. All of that.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Understanding the narrative of life through the lyric of song
and through the thump of our foot and hip bone
and the conditions in which people live and then create in.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Spite of those conditions is it's always.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
It's fascinating me and it plays out through the work.
So then growing up with that ass an influence, I
just bring more of that. I'm just bringing I'm just
continuing that conversation. Martie Gaines is definitely definitely an influence
as far as music it's concerned Gill Scott Hearing, because
Gill Scot Hearing taught me the possibility of that the
song still houses a poem.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
The songs the poem that's really powerfully said.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Rights for the fact that you could be you know,
what is a song with without bravery?
Speaker 5 (13:26):
House doesn't stand without courage, you know. So that's what
I need, that's what.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Falls in well well, Avery, I just want to say,
like hearing all those influences certainly show up in your music.
And I think, you know, for us and for our listeners, uh,
for the fans of some of my best friends are
we have benefited so much from all those influences in
the way that you have captured the sacred in the secular. So, uh,
(13:53):
we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're going to talk a bit more about your artistry.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
We'll be right back. We are back on some of
my best friends with the amazing Avery Are Young. Avery,
I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the first time we met,
(14:22):
which was a bunch of years ago, and it was
at an art opening in Chicago, and you were doing
visual art at that time, a sculpture and you were
presenting this sculpture which was a noose, an actual noose,
and at the bottom of it were skittles sort of
scattered around it.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That was my first solo exhibition, and so a lot
of the visual text work was in relationship to it.
At the time, what was the murder in the trial
of trayvon Martin. I just really wanted to think about
(15:06):
the materials, just the material the caves did a lot
of studying about what was going on and then try
to implement that ended the materiars used inside.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
Of the.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And trayvon Martin as he was walking in his in
his neighborhood, he had gone to the store to buy skittles.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Yes, yes, skittles.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
So in your exhibit you see this noose and it's
like ten feet off the ground, and it's made out
of blue jeans, like torn up blue jeans, the entire noose,
and it extends on one end all the way to
the floor where it meets empty bags of skittles, and
then the candy skittles spread out all on the floor.
(15:51):
Can you can you tell us you know how you
made this, like you're you're thinking behind it.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
So we took I took the.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Jeans and I kind of ripped them up, and then
my friend Chuld had sold them to so they were
like this one long piece, and then we soaked it and.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Arizona Arizona iced teas and all kinds.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I just stuck a bunch of it, soaked them in
that for a couple of days, and then once we
got the once that got it, dried it for a
minute and then began.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
To do the work of.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Twisted it so that it would look like a rope
and what the sugar and I mean the sugar in
the drinks would help bind, yes, yes, and we're singing
that that would happen, and like it worked, and I
was like, and then we went about the business of
(16:52):
time the noose and I remember like that day every
other day it was. It was it was really hard
that I cut off. I cut off the lights and
I kept listening to a strange fruit over and over,
and I kept listening, and so I listened to three
different versions replay, and that was the Howard Day's version,
(17:15):
and it was this and Mimes Simon's version and Cassandra
Wilson's version, and I just listened to those in a
loop and kind of took my time to to.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
Tad News and I.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Could avery, yeah, I mean this idea that you captured
of Trayvon Martin also being lynched, and this is my
first introduction to you, and I'm seeing this and this
powerful visual art, and then I'm thinking about, well, who
is this guy? What what is his artistry? And then
that same night you performed Resurrect Fred, which is really
(17:56):
performance art. It's a song and more than that, and
I was like, Oh, this guy isn't just a visual artist.
He is this you know, multi varied performance artist. Like
there's so much there's something else going on here. And
so this Resurrect Fred is about Fred Hampton, who is
the twenty one year old Black panther leader who was
(18:16):
murdered by police in nineteen sixty nine. He was sleeping
in his home in the early morning and they raided
and they murder him. And you know, maybe we could
just talk about that piece for a moment. What does
it mean to resurrect Fred?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Here we go back to this gospel and attachment, this
attachment to the church. A lot of what influences, especially
as a performance artist, is preaching and a certain and
seeing how a person with certain cadence and power and
confidence and knowledge of a word inscripture and history presents
(18:55):
this literature which is what you know, a Bible was
full of poems. Fred is definitely from rooted in the
scripture of the Resuscitation of Lazarus, who at the time,
there's a there's a description in the Bible says Jesus
wept right and it's kind of the.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Only noted recording of the weeping.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
But always like why, you know, because he was he
had lost a good friend, and the community lost a
very good friend and ally and advocate them when they
lost Chairman Fred and all the others got lost. That
was within that within that time, we're talking about very
violent political time in American history, and Chairman Fred was
(19:42):
definitely not the only person who was slain in this time.
But the idea at the end of the day that
was just these young black people that wanted better for
their community.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
You know, we talked about we talked about the guns and.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And them protected community with artillery, but they were also
waking up in the morning, fixing breakfast and serving it
to the panthers, and they be in the Black Panthers.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
So song resurrect Fred is let's let's let's get that together.
So that's what I wane when I'm saying resurrect Fred.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yes, that's it's about the resurrection of that work, that
work that is happening or what was happening in the
communities with the Black Panthers, and that's how that that's
how they comes about coming.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So Avery, I didn't meet you that way, and and
this is my first time really getting to know you
in this personal way, and I'm just really grateful for
this opportunity. But I did get a chance to see
Emmett till the Remix, which is a video performance that
(20:51):
that that you've done, and I mean it's like it's
incredible and in a way that speaks directly to what
you describe with resurrect Fred, meaning that here is this
this young man who's killed in uh mississipp be Uh.
His killing inspires an entire generation of civil rights activists,
(21:15):
and you tell the entire story of what happened to
him in this performance.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You you you call back to actually the presence of
the community at the time that they bear witness and
it's really powerful to see in the video. But could
you could you set the context for what you do
(21:41):
in I Matilda Remix by singing a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Of it for us, man, we are getting our money's
worth there, man, ohn is such an it is such
a space.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
And again.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
We are you there.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
When they did what they did to that ball?
Speaker 8 (22:15):
Where there.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
When they did what they did to that ball? Were
you there when they snatched the mile? It was her
uncle's house? Well you're there, they snatched the mile to
(22:43):
your uncle's high?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Is this him?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Is this skill?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Is this him?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Is this skim missage?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Is this shame?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Is this.
Speaker 8 (23:05):
Hum?
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Whoa care?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Man?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Thank you that that that that were you there? That
you part like you're telling the story and it's bearing witness,
but it also feels like an accusation, like you were
you there? Tell us about that? Like that you're you're
putting a burden on us too.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Yeah, that particular peace is.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Flipping around a hem or spiritual about the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ. Where you're there when they crucify the Lord.
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble where you're there
when they crucified the Lord? And again I actually were
you there to be a witness?
Speaker 4 (24:00):
You know this?
Speaker 5 (24:01):
It's placing it, it's.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Doing this thing that Gwyndolan Brooks does and we real
coul right, the womans and they real cool. They left school.
And by using the language we it implicates any and
everybody that reads it. So you're one of the seven.
You're one of the seven at the goal of the shovel, right,
And so using that language where you there, even if
(24:26):
you weren't born in a time right, you get through,
You get through this journey, where you get through this language,
bear witness to this murder. And the sad part of
it is just like when you hear I've talked about
it and Mantel Trayvon Martin. You know, because you keep
(24:49):
seeing this level of racial terrorism repeated and repeated us.
It gets repeated throughout the song.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, Avery, I just have to say, for folks who
haven't seen this video, which we will, we will most
certainly link to for the show, that everything you've been
describing in terms of like the mashup of the past.
You've talked about biblical times, you're talking about the time
of Jesus' crucifixion, You've talked about the time of the
civil rights movement. And in this video you stand alone
(25:19):
first in a church as a song begins, just as
you started here singing today and yet all of a sudden,
the scenery changes and it shifts from a church with
you as a single person singing out loud in a
kind of plaintiff cry, to a civil rights march, and
they're signed. You're surrounded by people with I Am a
man signs, and then the scene shifts again and you're
(25:41):
at a Black Lives Matter rally. And what comes through
in this video performance is precisely your call to recognize
the past in the present and the need as you
say at the end of this song, when you call
out who's gonna live, Who's gonna live? Who's gonna live
for Emmet, which is to say, who's gonna live today
(26:03):
for the people who continue to suffer from racism in America?
It's just so powerful And who's to fight for?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That's one of the lines too, celebrating the life of
a person who is no longer with us, and then
celebrating my life of a person who still is. The
idea that length of that particular line, Who's going to
live is what you do in this body that will
continue to tell the continue to tell the story of
(26:31):
this person who couldn't And that's just the thing we
feel with a lot of people feel anger. It gives
us questions and give the particular that image Til like
being said, sparked a whole and inspired a whole level
of civil rights movement. Rosa Parks has noted to say
(26:53):
that that's who she was thinking of actually stay in
her seat on the bus.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Muhammad Ali talked.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
About learning about Immin Tell and seeing the image in
it on the on the front page of a newspaper
and all all of these things that have that particular
death moves people to so many different motions and then
they get to that last line, but who's gonna leave?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, Yeah, such a such a powerful way to keep
the memory of Emmettel present in the ongoing struggle for
a new generation of young people who have been fighting
against this problem. We're gonna take another break, and when
we come back, we're gonna talk about you as poet laureate.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
We'll be right back, man, Avery, We are back on
some of my best friends. I thank you so much.
(27:58):
This has been just incredible and Khalil, I have had
the great fortune of seeing Avery performing person, and it
is this mix of all these things. It's visual our
it's dance, it's preaching, it's spoken word, it's poetry. Mostly
I'm you know, it's off in participatory and I'm off
in there and I'm thinking, don't pick me, don't pick me.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
No, no, no no, You're like you're like you're like
your leg star.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
You can't. Before I'm told, I was like, thank god
you didn't pull me into the center.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Called up to the podium.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yes, so Avery, you know, we've we've heard your poetry
today in song. But you're you're now the poet Laureate
of Chicago, and let's talk about that.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
What is that?
Speaker 4 (28:50):
What does that job entail? What have you been doing
for these last several weeks.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I've been doing a lot of readings at this point,
but I plan to do a lot of community building
so and get calls, Hey, you've been you, You've been like,
it's gonna be you.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
It's like all.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Smack is like a bad signal, like a poetry.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It was hilarious because I had just had lunch with
Eve you and it was like my niece and I
was telling her friends, so yes, and I was telling Eve,
you know, I think it's gonna be you, like I
dominated you, and he was like no.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I was talking to Jamila, Sila would Tomila Wood is
another amazing Chicago musician and artists.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And poet right and they both like these young women
who you know, with the wrestle of a generation of
artists in Chicago, who I've mentored and talked and like
I said, and just in community with. But I got
the news and I was like really like excited and honored,
(29:59):
and like the coolest part is be being the innamural one.
I get to figure it out, you know, and really
set up shop for those who who will follow as
poet lauriate. And like I said right now, a lot
of it has really been reading the inaugurate, the inauguration,
(30:21):
the juneteen celebration. I just did the l A A conference,
American Library Association conference. So a lot of it has been,
you know, reading in my capacity support laureate. But a
lot of the work would be with just build a
community and get in Chicago to write poems together and things.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Of that nature.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You you evoked Gwendolyn Brooks earlier and when we were
in like middle school, Uh, she was the Illinois Poet laureate. Yes,
and I just remember what it meant to have her
presence being around that she would like show up at
the school and people talked about it, and she was
somebody that that was you saw and that her poems
(31:01):
you cited. We real cool. They felt accessible, they felt
like they were about the city. She's in Africa, an
American woman, she was, she was older, she felt like
an ant to a lot of people. And yeah, and
I just you know that idea. So that's a kind
(31:21):
of rule.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I get to go to schools and you know, get
to go to schools, like I said, and I really
want to get students together to write with each other,
you know, and write and write these massive or epic
poems with each other, you know, and not just be
about me coming to the school and saying, hey, I'm
every young and I'm the Chicago Poet Laureate, but really
building community ways in which so many other organizations who
(31:45):
I've worked with in the past is done. So Bama
Gwenland definitely has set the set, the tone and precedent
of how I would believe to kind of show up
and be present during my tenure as laureate. But I
also understand that I have to take I have I
have to also craft it to be my own so
(32:07):
that when you're people had this memory decades from now,
I remember, well, uncle, yes, and be the thing and
all of your stuff, and people will talk about me
the way they talk about her.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, so so you have this, you have this book
of poetry called neck Bone, and you you subtitle it
visual Versus. So so let's talk about about that, because clearly,
as a multidisciplinary artist, you cannot keep your brain working
on one track.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
So it's full up up in the brain between the eyes.
I'm like, oh, but that was even the.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Point, so I think when well, for me, mm hmm,
the the poem that you see on the page is
extracted language.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
It's language that you pick from.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
All the words and all the imagery that's going on
in your brain and inside your imagination. I keep, I
keep trying to talk about this and not sound like
it's just voodoo. Yes, it's just like that is that
is with intent. But so that the idea of then
(33:29):
just being transparent of how I see a poem as
opposed to extracting the language from what I see, is
why how visual visual versus come.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I'm a little just showing what I see.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
M favery, You're giving us like a view into how
your mind is working. Which yeah, I think I think
these poems do, which is you're having a conversation, often
with received images, like with pop culture, of things that
are important to you. And so there's like this triangulation
that's going on, and then it's sort of visual for you,
and then it's being turned into words.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
But it's also can I just say it's also the
book has seventy colorful colored illustrations, So this isn't you're
not speaking purely in attraction. You actually have drawn in
the book. You've used your artistic visual talent to actually
put in the book illustrations in a book of poetry,
which is unusual for most for most poets, and.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
The words are often the text is often part of
like a painting or a drawing. I want to I
want to ask you a question about your work, and
both your work is poet laureate of Chicago, and really
all you're at work in a way you're reimagining Chicago
and telling a Chicago story. And I want to ask
(34:50):
you that, like, what is the story of Chicago that
you're trying to change and reinterpret and reinvent.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I don't necessarily I'm reinventing or reimagine in Chicago. I
think I present the Chicago that I experience, Okay, and
I do experience Chicago a lot of times through my
imagination or in the context of others imagination, because I'm
part of the creative community. Right when you hear about
Chicago through the media and then the quote unquote the news,
(35:20):
you see, you see the Chicago that I just don't experience, right,
And not that I don't realize that it's there, because
again with the babies I've talked, I've been, I've been
sitting there, I've sung at funerals of students I had
talked two weeks prior, you know, so that I understand
and totally am aware of the whatever the news says
(35:43):
about Chicago, which is basically the violence, in the in
the weather. That's wacky, wacky and quacky, you know. But
I also get to experience people in community, one another,
the extended family.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
When I say Eve and Jamila like my nieces, they
are truly like my nieces.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
And then we ain't have no we have no biological
connection to each other, but the extension and the extension
of family is you know, I have a very diverse
dinner table, you know. And again as we treated and
love each other's family. So I'm trying to present the
Chicago that I get. But the work is always or
(36:24):
why not. The work is really in the imagination.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
When I tell students write what you know I was,
when they always well, right, what you know? Right right?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
What you know?
Speaker 5 (36:34):
And you know a thing because you've.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Either experienced it, witnessed it, you know, you've researched it
to the point where you feel like you know it
enough to write about it, or the best space of all,
it's just to imagine it, because when you imagine it,
can't nobody tell you they had yours?
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Does it did?
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Because I had this way, I said, and so that is,
you know.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
That's what I tell That's really both boss situation, that's
to your imagination. You can implement the things you researched
and the things in which you know, and the things
and what you experienced into the imagination. You're doing something
totally like beyond beyond you know. That's why I teach.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That's just why it's amazing to be inside your imagination,
even for this past, you know, even for this conversation.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Well listen, we've talked a lot about Chicago just now.
But some of my best friends are has taken Lil
Lily International. We have listeners all over the world, so
we are just grateful to be on this journey with you.
You are certainly one of our best friends, and we
(37:53):
are so excited for what is to come for you
in the future. Thank you so much, Avery for joining
us today, for taking some time out and sharing your
artistry with us.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
All right, Khalil, speaking of theme songs, this is our
last episode of the season. Yeah, and also for now
at least, our last episode with the show.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
It's not goodbye, it's farewell. It has been an amazing journey,
at least for me. I don't know about you, but
I want to talk a little bit about the fact
that we have done this show as part of our
own relationship. Like, you know, we've done a lot of
(38:58):
things together over the years, and this show just fits
right in with that. Yeah, and we talked about so
many of those things. But I want to reminisce a
little bit, like you know, we had our first jobs together,
a computer store, a grocery store. You know, we played
tennis together. I learned how to play, you know, oftentimes
competing against you, and I was like thirteen years old,
(39:22):
fourteen years old.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
I'm tearing up a little bit. And the thing, the
thing is, I also taught you how to host a podcast,
and I feel like I'm, you know, teaching you over
so many episodes. It's been that's been a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Of course, of course I feel that way.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I also like memory lane, Like my first poker game
was at your house, My first shibot dinner, first time
I ever researched in a college library was because your
dad sent us there during a teacher strike when we
were fifteen to sixteen years old.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
That's right, crycial decade I got.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
I got my first high school girlfriends because of you
and your then high school sweetheart now wife, Daniel Ure
hooking you up, and we stood up in each other's
we weddings. We were there when our first borns came
into the world, not actually at the delivery table, but
like within forty eight hours. The first time I ever
(40:22):
rented a place with Stephanie at Martha's Vineyard without being
like with your parents or with my parents in this case,
guess who was there me?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
That's right, you were there, because I don't remember any
of these things. Well, yes, you do, so this is
important to document it.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I love this well. I just think like in a
way thinking of retrospectively about what's gone on these last
two years, which represents now our thirty seventh year, and
a relationship has also been thinking about our friendship through
this podcast.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Yeah, actually doing this podcast together in this way and
working with you, it's like making meaning out of both
our relationship and our lives and the things we're experiencing
in the world, but making that meaning together. I know
that I I went into writing in a lot of
(41:18):
ways because I wanted to make meaning out of the
world and for this process that that each week, you know,
and sitting down on these on these calls. Uh, we
were doing that together and we're like, we're talking to
each other all the time, like maybe we should have
this person as a guest, or did you read this story,
or what do you think about that? Doing that with
you has been you know, all the work I've done,
(41:41):
this in some ways is the is certainly the most
joyous and a lot of ways the most meaningful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
No, I feel the same way. And I thought you
were going to add to like sitting down for these
calls like the shit ton of work we do because, man,
I mean, I'm pretty sure our listeners will appreciate this,
but we've read a shit ton of books, We've watched
a shit ton of television, we have watched movies multiple times.
(42:08):
Our producers have been and indefatigable in following big words
yeah and following up archival tape so that the show could,
you know, have these beautiful moments.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Can I say something a little darker too? I mean,
we started working on this show about three years ago,
and it was right after George Floyd's murder. It was
in that moment of national reckoning on race. And maybe
that's even we had the show.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
That is exactly one of the reasons we had the show,
like how can you.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Talk about race openly and in a way that feels
honest and you know, two people actually engaging one another
and then to explore all these topics in the country.
And over the course of doing this show, you know,
we've had so much joy, but we've also gone through
during that time this rapid surprising how fast it was, retrenchment,
(43:04):
this backlash. The divides that we talk about have only
become deeper.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
That's right, it does help to think about the fact
that what we talk about is like almost criminal in
a lot of states. I mean, we know for a
fact that we've heard from listeners who are teachers, some
people have stopped you on the street, and like, I
have assigned episodes of Some of My Best Friends Are
(43:31):
to my high school students. And that's in Illinois, of course,
and I know some of that's happened here in New Jersey,
but imagine in Florida and Texas. You know, we had
two really great episodes, one when the attack on critical
race theory in season one first happened, and then we
had one this season which looked at how Governor Ron
DeSantis had in fact helped to draw attention to the
(43:56):
College Board's curriculum so that a national standard, literally an
educational standard of the College Board would not be taught
in Florida and inspired other states for backlash. So, you know,
our show went from being something that had all the
possibility of being part of a transformative moment in American
history to now being a show that could be listed
(44:16):
as a band resource in a whole bunch of school
districts all around the county.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
So you think our show actually caused the backlash.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Well, I have a surprise for you on this point.
So the Barbie movie the runaway hit of the summer. So, dude,
you haven't seen the movie, but guess what. There is
a line in the movie when one of the characters says,
some of my best friends are Jewish. Dude, I'm telling
you when you say our show is part of the backlash.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
We made it.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
We made it into the biggest Hollywood hit of the summer.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
But you raise a really good point, Ben, that it
was our goal to try to offer something in this
moment of existential crisis where people weren't quite sure what
to do as the Trump era was unfolding. We said, like,
(45:12):
we're going to have this conversation and we're gonna we're
gonna each week figure out how to understand and say
something for the rest of the country. And you know,
in many parts of the world where we have listeners,
so that we feel like being able to speak to
what's happening is itself an act of resistance.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And and and to try
to add to the conversation in a in a productive way,
in a meaningful way.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
So I know, I know that every listener has kind
of uh at least at least I've heard, you know,
people have favorite episodes, but I have my own, and
I don't know about you, but I want to hear
a couple of your favorite ones. I I to this
day absolutely love the Interracial Buddy Films episode, like that,
(46:03):
that episode, the conversation about forty eight Hours and Leave
the Weapon, the like scene in that bar scene where
we talk about what's happening when Eddie Murphy like becomes
Nick Nolty's character and takes over the bar. And then
later when you talk about Danny Glover and Mel Gibson
in this orgasmic embrace man that that was just smart.
Good mo, you were really smart.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Well, I'll say, like, I'm gonna speak more generally because
you know, you and I have a rapport and sort
of you know, a casualist. So there's something really fantastic
when people we didn't know that well came on the
show and we're just completely comfortable with us and be
completely open. And you know, there's so many examples of that,
you know, from from Clint Smith to Jay Kang to
Sam Irby, and then you know in our experiences we
(46:48):
know or have come across or have access to, so
many amazing people, so many people who are fascinating and
who are truly our friends in some way. And to
have people on like Avery Today or or Eve Ewing
or Amanda Williams or Zay Dorn killing it, you are
dropping all those Nathie Stewart, my sister, uh Sasha Penn,
(47:11):
you know. But then I have to say that there
are moments for me and maybe this is like the
Buddy Films one that you said when it's just us talking.
And there was a moment when we were doing a
show about comedy.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
And I think it was started The Bad and the Funny, and.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
It started by Dave Chappelle having this Netflix show. But
we decided that we would reveal to one another some
of our favorite comedy moments. And there was a moment
on air while we're recording when it turned out that
we picked the exact same clip. We both picked this
Eddie Murphy skit from Saturday Live. And just like the
(47:49):
joyousness of that moment, the euphoria, like I was just
like giddy that we you know, our minds were working
the same.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Moody and kurrt. If you missed that episode, listeners, go
back and Ben is like a four year old kid,
just so happy. Funny thing is for this conversation. I
actually picked that memory, that memory too.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
Ah see.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
You know, listen, I mean, this is the one opportunity
that we have in two seasons, over two years of episodes,
to share what someone else thought about our show other
than us. And so I'm going to read one listener review,
and of course it's a good one, because who gets
a shit about the ones that hated us?
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Man, So this is very healthy. That's a very healthy
way I would I'm the person that only looks at
the negative one. This is a difference between us too.
Everybody be more like Khalil So.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
From June eighth, twenty twenty three, on the Apple podcast app,
a listener whose hashtag is my alter ego is a
Navy Seal titled their five star review as the Intersection
of Information and Joy. And this is what this listener wrote,
I love this podcast so much. It gives me so
(49:06):
much joy to hear two men speak frankly about the
aspects of a long, beautiful friendship. I want to go
to Martha's vineyard on vacation with these two amazing families.
Carry on with great joy heart emoji. But there's more.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
This listener adds update. As I continue to listen to
this informative, educational, important podcast. May I just say that
nothing on this beautiful, fragile planet brings me more joy
and yes, with a tear in my eye than at
the end when you sign off with I love you, Man,
(49:45):
I love you too, Yes, yes, thank you. My alter
ego is a Navy seal, because in my darkest moments
to come, I will be coming back to this review
to know that we brought some joy in the world.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
That's beautiful. Well, let me ask you. Let me ask
you a kind of thought experiment. As close as we are.
If you could think of anyone else to have done
this podcast with, even even a historical figure, who would
it be? Man?
Speaker 3 (50:15):
I think I would have done it with Eddie Murphy?
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Huh interesting? Okay, I got you, Yeah, I got you.
I got you because I would have still chosen you.
That's fucked up, all right, we gotta go see everybody later. Khali, Yeah,
my bad.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
I'm sorry. All right, So listen before we sign off.
We've got a couple more listeners who are gonna leave
us with some parting thoughts.
Speaker 7 (50:48):
Hey, bro, I'm really gonna miss you being in my
closet like twice a week with Khalil. It has been
really awesome to have you guys get to spend this
much time together.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
And I can't wait till see what you guys cook
up next.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
All right, beautiful, that's Khalil's wife, Stephanie. That's beautiful.
Speaker 6 (51:11):
Thank you for that, Ben and Khalil. I can't believe
it's your final episode. Congratulations on your podcast. I'm so
happy the world got to hear just how smart, andsightful
and fucking funny you guys are. I'm privileged because I
get to continue to see your love, friendship, and brotherhood.
(51:33):
Congrats guys.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
That's beautiful. That's my wife, Danielle. And the beautiful part
of the podcast is she still has so many episodes
to catch up on so she can enjoy this for
years to come.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Well, I can't speak on that, but I can say
that they were part of the show for sure, and
I think if we were going to thank you, at
least a couple people beyond our producers and the Pushkin family,
I think we had to give it up to Stephanie
and Danielle.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
The loves of our lives.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
That's right, Yeah, that's right, all right man. Well, I'm
sorry that I would have chosen Eddie Murphy if I
had to do this again, but you know I did.
There's a trick question.
Speaker 4 (52:19):
There are no trick questions. There are no trick questions,
only only revealing our true selves.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
The truth is that there's no substitute for you, and
and this has been an amazing run. And yeah, I
guess no surprises here.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
I love you, man, I'll see you on the other side.
Love you too.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Jabron Muhammad and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 4 (52:55):
It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.
It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Keyshell Williams.
Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our managing producer
is Constanza Guyardo.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
At Pushkin thanks to Leitol, Molad, Julia Barton, Heather Fein,
Carly Migliori, John Schnarz, Greta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 4 (53:19):
Our theme song, Little Lily is by fellow Chicaguan the
brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman. You definitely
want to check out his music at his website, Averyaryong
dot com.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin
Pods and you can sign up for our newsletter at
pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen. Even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about it. Thank you, Sir
Speaker 3 (54:14):
MHM
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